How Cat Got a Life (3 page)

She could only see the back of Dalton’s head, but it was clear that he was nodding.

“I need to get a job as soon as possible,” Cat said, as if she’d given the idea a great deal of consideration, instead of improvising. “The week at the sheriff’s office will be a start, and then I’ll get together a resume and start looking for something permanent.”

“That’s great.” Dalton snapped his head upright. “Brilliant idea.”

“Okay.” Cat jumped onto her feet and adjusted the chinos around her waist. “It’s agreed then. I’ll get a job.”

“About that other thing…”

“What other thing?”

“The kind of man a girl wants.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. I think you’ll do just fine.”

“I was thinking more about you…I was thinking that if you expect everything you said, you’ll never find anyone. Just pick a guy and give him a chance, okay?”

Her eyes widened as she stared down at him. Dalton didn’t flinch.

Dear God.
Cat let out a groan of despair. Her sixteen-year-old stepson wanted to hoist her off on a man, any man, so she wouldn’t smother him.

“I’ll think about it,” she promised. “Maybe I’ll even go out on a date.”

“Good,” Dalton said. “That’s a start.”

****

Brock drove down Main Street for the sixteenth time. He’d toured the campus twice. He could have gotten out of the car and sat down somewhere, but he’d lost his appetite for coffee, and he suspected that the latest gossip might be about him anyway.

Karen had patched through a few calls, but nothing that gave him an excuse to stay away from the office. With a resigned sigh, he turned the steering wheel and headed for the station.

Be a man. Get it over with.

Karen stifled a grin when he walked in. Walter didn’t react beyond his usual gruff greeting. Mrs. Bridgewater was nowhere to be seen. The tension in Brock's muscles eased. She must have used the opportunity to wriggle out of her sentence, and Karen had kept her mouth shut about the restroom incident. He breathed more freely than he had all night.

Brock pulled open the door of his private office and found her standing on a stepladder, polishing a framed diploma on the wall. A pair of baggy chinos and white tennis shoes had replaced the slim skirt and high heels. She turned to him, her mouth open in surprise. Just like it had been yesterday. All night, the image of her kneeling before him, her lips ajar in front of his open fly had plagued him.

Now, his groin stiffened with a fury he hadn’t felt since his teens.

“You were supposed to do typing, not cleaning,” Brock said when he found his voice.

“I’m sorry.” Mrs. Bridgewater shifted on her feet. The stepladder rocked over the floor. A little shriek escaped her lips and her arms flailed for balance.

Without thinking, Brock rushed up and caught her in his arms as she toppled down. She slammed into him with a force that knocked their bodies together. He could feel her breasts flattening against his chest and her mound pressing into his abdomen. The erection he’d tried to control hardened into steel.

She tipped her head back to look into his face. Her eyes widened, and then narrowed as comprehension struck. She shifted her hips, just a little, as if to make certain.

Brock almost groaned with pleasure at the tiny friction against his straining shaft. His arms didn’t obey. They refused to release her, instead sliding further around her to hold her tight. She made no effort to struggle, didn’t try to pull away. A little catch hitched in her breath. He lowered his head, until his lips were only inches from hers. Her hands crept up and curled around his biceps, her fingers digging into his flesh so hard it stung.

All sanity fled. His head came down to nuzzle the side of her neck. He breathed in the faint fragrance of flowers, too subtle to be perfume, more like shampoo or soap. Just when the last vestiges of resistance crumbled and Brock dragged his lips along her cheek to cover her mouth with his, a knock sounded at the door.

“Is everything okay?” Karen shouted. “There was a crash.”

Brock closed his eyes and heaved out a frustrated sigh. “It’s okay,” he shouted back. “She fell, but I caught her. She isn’t hurt.”

He eased their bodies apart. “Mrs. Bridgewater?”

She kept staring up at him. Her eyes were pale grey-green, the color of aspen leaves.

“Cat,” she whispered, so low he had to lean down to hear her voice.

His brain finally kicked in and started broadcasting danger signals for being so close to her. Brock straightened his shoulders and told her to speak up.

“Call me Cat,” she said. “It’s short for Catherine.”

“Cat.” A shiver raced over him at the thought of her cat-like eyes, and the feline grace she must posses in order to climb unharmed to the top of the clock tower with nothing but her hands and feet, and a pouch of chalk tied around her waist.

“Cat, you need to let go of my arms, and I need to let go of you.”

“Yes,” she said, but didn’t move. Her gaze skimmed over his features in a way that felt like a caress.

The pull of attraction was as inevitable as the tide. Resisting the urge to gather her close, Brock merely tipped his head and took her mouth in a soft searching kiss. She stepped into him. Her hands reached up to his neck, and her fingers slid into his hair. With a growl of impatience, he gave in, hauled her close, and deepened the kiss. She sagged against him and opened her mouth, allowing his tongue to probe inside.

In a perfect fit, her body arched into his. The throbbing in his groin grew into an ache. He feasted on her, explored her taste and texture with his mouth. One of his hands crept around to cup her breast.

“No,” she whispered on an indrawn breath, weak and without conviction.

Brock stilled. Slowly, he straightened. “No?”

She shook her head, suddenly frantic. “I can’t. Not with a married man.”

Baffled, he frowned at her. “You think I’m married?”

“Aren’t you?” She gestured toward the wedding band he still wore.

Brock released her and raked one hand through his hair, unsure of how to approach the topic. Elation glimmered in the back of his mind. If she didn’t know, at least he could be sure that her willingness to kiss him hadn’t been driven by pity or an odd sense of curiosity.

“What on earth do you talk about with Karen if my personal life hasn’t come up in the conversation?” he asked.

Her brows knotted in irritation, and Brock cursed himself for his poor choice of words. He’d sounded like an arrogant male who took it for granted that women flocked after him, wanted to know about his marital status.

A heavy sigh rocked his shoulders. “Ask Karen. It’s easier that way. For both of us.”

Cat shook her head. In her eyes, confusion replaced the languid aftermath of the kiss. “You want me to ask Karen if you’re married?”

Brock nodded. Suddenly, he couldn’t take it any more, the constant fight to ignore the demands of his body, the guilt, and the burden of the memories. He lifted one hand to dismiss her. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got work to get on with.”

When she reached the door, he called out, “Cat?”

“Yes?”

“If you’d rather not come back, consider your forty hours completed.”

She gave a silent nod and disappeared through the door.

* * * *

“Is Brock married?” Cat slipped out the question, her tone casual as she leaned over Karen’s desk, plucking dead leaves from a wilting azalea on the windowsill.

“Not you too.” A frown of disgust flickered across Karen’s features.

The anger that surged inside her seemed out of all proportion, but Cat gave in to it. Everything needled her today. The photocopier kept jamming. The roar of traffic outside screeched in her ears, and when she filed fishing permits, even the alphabet seemed to jump out of order. Worst of all, Brock skulked in his office, behind closed doors, as if nothing unusual had taken place.

As if he hadn’t given her a kiss that scrambled her brain.

“Why do people assume that every woman who crosses his path is swept off her feet by his masculine charm?” she fumed.

“Because most of them are.”

“Well, I’m not, for one. I think he is arrogant, overbearing—”

Karen sniggered.

Cat clamped a hand over her mouth and stared in horror. “Oh my God. I sound as if I’m…”

“Well and truly stirred,” Karen finished for her. “I’m not blind. You emerged from his office with a flushed face and rubbery legs. His eyes followed you like the Big Bad Wolf stares after the Little Red Riding Hood. And don’t try to tell me nothing happened. Save your lies for someone else.”

“I wasn’t going to lie.” Cat snatched her trembling fingers from the plant to stop the pot rattling on the saucer. “I fell off the stepladder, and he caught me. Our bodies seemed rather more interested in the intimate contact than our minds.”

Karen’s eyes rounded with surprise. “That’s a first. It’s true that he has to fight women off, and he does. Literally, shoves them away when nothing else works. Cat, do you realize that you’ve gotten under his skin just as bad as he’s gotten under yours?”

Cat froze as she accepted the truth. Every emotion she’d felt since Friday had been a warning sign she’d missed. The exhilaration had nothing to do with the clandestine climb up the clock tower. Anxiety about going home without Dalton hadn’t triggered the breathless anticipation that now throbbed along her veins.

Brock Leonetti was to blame for her state as a nervous wreck.

“I’m a fool,” she said. “A complete and utter fool.”

“Sit down.” Karen caught her arm and pointed her to a chair. “I need to tell you about his marriage. When I said
not you too,
I didn’t mean to imply that you were chasing after him. I assumed that you were following a thread of gossip you’d heard.”

Cat settled opposite Karen and got ready to listen.

“Brock’s wife was called Sandra,” Karen started. “They grew up together. Played as kids, went to the same schools. When Brock left for college, Sandra got a job as a bank teller. She’d always been…emotionally fragile, but the pressure of the job made it worse. She was dreamy, absent-minded. A position that required accuracy didn’t suit her, but she was more afraid to try something different than she was to stay in a job that made her miserable.”

Karen paused and twirled a pen in her hand, studying the flickering motion.

“It’s all right,” Cat said. “You’re not betraying Brock by gossiping. He told me to ask you. He said it would be easier that way.”

Karen nodded with obvious relief. “Brock kept coming home for the holidays. Sandra clung to him. She seemed better when he was around, stronger. When Brock finished college, he moved back here, and they got married. Sandra gave up her job, but it didn’t make her feel better. It made her worse. For years, she battled depression. She was on medication, tried all kinds of mental health programs. Nothing worked. In the end, she took her own life. Brock was away for a few days. When he came home, he found her body. She’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“Oh my God.” Cat rocked on the seat, fighting the surge of emotion—shock, horror, pity, all jumbled together..

“Brock doesn’t talk about it. He can’t forgive himself for not being able to make her happy. He tried hard in the beginning, but over the years they just drifted apart. Sandra withdrew from the world, and Brock buried himself in his work.”

“How long ago did she die?”

“It will be four years next spring. I’m not aware of Brock having dated anyone since.” Karen threw a quick glance in her direction. “Go easy on him. They were married nearly ten years. It can’t have been a bed of roses.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Cat said and got up.

Karen occupied herself with the papers on her desk.

As Cat tended the rest of the houseplants dotted around the office, an idea rose in the turmoil of her mind. She’d thought they had nothing in common, but she’d been wrong. Both she and the sheriff had married people who took more than they gave, drained their emotional resources.

She wondered if Brock Leonetti felt as empty inside as she did.

****

Brock finished his emails. He’d reviewed the expenditures for the quarter, approved the estimate for rewiring the station electrics, and written an argument to turn down the proposal that the two deputies should work in shifts.

The lights in the outside office had gone out an hour ago, but he lingered. You never knew about women. The pair of them might be sitting on the doorstep, and he’d had enough of feminine intrigue for the day.

What in hell had possessed him to lose control like that? Even now, he could recall her scent teasing his nostrils, could feel her soft curves pressing against his body, her lips warm and responsive beneath his. With a harsh growl, he tossed down the pen and stood to stretch his limbs. He’d have to find a way to survive three more days.

That’s all. Three. More. Days.

He checked his firearm, picked up his keys, and closed the office for the night.