She spelled anniversary wrong. Twice.

Peyton blew her hair out of her eyes and shook her head. Damn. She’d never been this distracted at work before. She’d been hungover. She’d come in after an hour of sleep. She’d worked with a migraine before. And she’d never had this much trouble getting her stuff done.

She swiped the Annniversary off of the cake and redid it for the third time, finally getting it right.

Then she wrote Kathy and Scott. Instead of Kathy and Steve.

She growled softly, fixed the error, and decided it was time for lunch. Even if it was only ten forty-five.

“Is it okay if I head out early for lunch?” she asked Adrianne, as she stepped into the front of the bakery. “I have an errand to run today.”

“Of course,” Adrianne said, looking up from the caramels she was dipping in chocolate.

“I’ll be back in an hour.” The second her shoes hit the pavement outside of the bakery, Peyton turned for the Come Again. She hoped that the bar wouldn’t be too busy at this time of day. They did burgers and basic sandwiches, but most people headed to Dottie’s for lunch, saving the Come Again for the late-night munchies.

Her phone dinged in her pocket as she crossed the square. She silenced it, assuming it was another sexy text from Scott. She’d already gotten three, referencing things he’d like to do with strawberry yogurt, dill pickles and peanut butter. Not necessarily all at once. And she should have been expecting them.

She’d left notes around the house again today. Like a note on the jar of pickles in the fridge that said, there’s never a dill day with you, and one on a container of strawberry yogurt that said, yogurt a great butt. She’d also stuck one on the jar of peanut butter that read, I’m nuts about you, even though that was really close to sharing feelings she wasn’t quite sure she was ready to share. She’d almost gone back inside to throw it away, but she’d been afraid of waking him.

She just wasn’t quite ready to see him today. Her thoughts were still spinning from last night—from the things she’d shared with him and the things he’d told her. And she needed more information. Because frankly, she was ready to jump him and do all kinds of dirty things to him and just deal with the relationship debris that would occur in the wake later.

Scott had worked to stop sex trafficking and save victims? He’d gone undercover? He’d pulled young girls out of horrible situations and kicked major bad-guy butt? Oh, yeah, she could totally see that. But how had she not known about it?

But she had a pretty good idea why. She’d never paid that much attention to him.

She’d assumed that she knew the important things, and she’d been focused on making it all about the physical between them. She’d definitely taken inventory of his great ass and his wide shoulders and his big hands and his general gruff, protective, bossy attitude that did delicious things to her hormones. But she hadn’t really paid attention to him. The things he cared about—other than her. The things he spent time on—other than her. The things he talked about—other than her.

Ugh. It all made her stomach roil. As long as his attention had been on her, she hadn’t cared what else he’d cared about or thought about or did.

She was more and more like her mother every day.

Peyton hit the door to the Come Again with enough force to send it bouncing against the wall inside.

“I add holes in the drywall to bar tabs,” Derek said from behind the bar where he was drying glasses. “Just so you know.”

“We need to talk,” Peyton told him as she slid up onto a stool.

“Is this iced tea talking, beer talking, or tequila talking?” Derek asked, seeming unfazed by her slamming his door open or stomping inside. At least before noon. She’d done some slamming and stomping around in here before. But it was almost always after ten p.m.

“Iced tea,” she said. “But only because I have to go back to work.”

He pulled the pitcher of tea from the fridge behind the bar and poured her a glass. “So it should be a tequila talk?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I’m guessing this has to do with Scott somehow.” Derek gave her a grin and propped a hip against the bar. “What did he do?”

“Told me about the sex trafficking work he did,” she said. “Told me he worked undercover to bust up sex trafficking along I-80 and save all those kids. Told me he came back here because he got burnt out. Told me that he would never let anything bad like that happen here.”

Derek straightened away from the bar, his half grin melting away. “Oh.”

Peyton nodded. “So that’s all true.”

Derek shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, he did that task force work for a few years, but when he had a chance to come back here to work, and only help out with the special ops once in a while, he took it.”

Peyton ran her thumb through the condensation on the side of her glass. Then she lifted her gaze and looked at one of Scott’s best friends in the world. Derek was a laid-back, get-by-on-his-charm-and-good-looks kind of guy. But there were a few things he took very seriously—the Come Again, Sapphire Falls, and his friends and family.

“Do you think Sapphire Falls is enough for him?” Peyton asked.

Derek’s eyes flickered with surprise for a moment, but then he gave her a slow nod. “In some ways.”

“But not in every way,” she said. She blew out a breath. “I mean, of course it’s not. Scott is…too big for Sapphire Falls, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean by too big?”

“I mean, I get that he loves it here and that this is the perfect place to come after seeing all of the horrible shit he’s seen. But, is he really going to be happy just breaking up beer parties and making sure people don’t speed down Main and doing crowd control during the festivals?”

Derek frowned. “I think he is very happy doing those things.” He took a breath. “I think that there’s nothing more important to Scott than keeping this town and the people here as far away from the bad shit he’s seen as possible. I think his goal is to maintain Sapphire Falls as the…haven that it is.”

Peyton thought about that. Yeah, that made sense. And damn, if she didn’t love Scott even more for keeping this town the way it was, the way she needed it to be.

“And you think that he can be fulfilled by that for good?” she asked.

Derek seemed to be debating about what he was going to say next. “Okay, honestly?” he asked. “I’ve wondered the same things you have. I think that the work he did was really important to him, and it fed a need in him to save people and right the wrongs and make the world better. But, I also think that when he saw how close some of the shit was—the sex trafficking, the drugs that go with it, the guns, the…everything—when he saw that up and down that interstate so close to home, I think that made him all the more determined to come back and become our own personal sentinel. Nothing’s getting in here as long as we have Scott.”

Derek’s words hit her directly in the chest. He was absolutely right on with all of it.

She wet her lips, wondering if she should ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue. But finally, she couldn’t help it. For all his laid-back, good-time ways, Derek Wright was someone she could trust. He probably kept more secrets than anyone in this town.

“And do you think that a lot of Scott’s attraction to me is that I’m the girl in town most in need of saving?”

She really wanted to be more than that to Scott, but since he claimed to be interested in more than her boobs and healthy sexual appetite, she couldn’t help but wonder what he really saw in her.

The most obvious answer seemed to be that he saw her as someone who needed a protector and a warrior.

She risked looking up at Derek, afraid to see agreement, and maybe pity, in his eyes. But he was smiling at her.

“You really don’t know why he likes you?” Derek asked.

“Well, I look really great in tight jeans and short skirts,” she quipped. Then regretted it. She wanted an honest answer here.

Derek laughed. “That you do,” he agreed. “And yeah, okay, he likes being your hero too. But there’s more to it.”

Peyton felt her heart trip in her chest. She really wanted there to be more to it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You and this town are the epitome of everything he’s fighting for and wants to save.”

Peyton felt her eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you make him happy, Peyton.”

“I do?”

“You laugh and you live big and you love hard and you have fun. You’re secure enough in yourself and in this town to say what you think and do what you want, and you aren’t afraid. That’s what he wants…hell, for everyone in the entire world, I swear. He wants people to be happy and safe and unafraid.”

Peyton felt her chest tightening. “You don’t think he sees me as sad and pathetic and as a damsel in distress?”

Derek snorted at that. “Nobody sees you as a damsel in distress, Peyton. And no, sad and pathetic are definitely not words Scott, or anyone else, uses.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that. She was so freaking relieved.

“But,” Derek added, and Peyton felt her brows raise. “I do think you have a point.”

“I do?” she asked. “About what?”

“Scott. I do think that he should be doing more with the task force and special operations. I get that it’s hard, but damn. That kind of stuff is his shit.”

Peyton agreed. “And he’s got us. He’s got Sapphire Falls to come home to. I think that would make a difference this time if he went out and did more of that work.”

Derek gave her a smile that was unlike the smiles she’d seen from him in the past. Usually he looked entertained by her. He even got flirtatious with her from time to time, though mostly because he simply couldn’t help it when there was a female within ten yards. But this smile seemed completely affectionate.

“I think you’re right,” Derek said. “He’s got us now.”

Damn right he did.

* * *

The rest of her day went well. She spelled everything right, she sent Scott a couple of witty texts—rather than saying I’m totally falling in love with you and freaking out a little bit about it as she was tempted to—and she agreed on a day and time to have lunch with her dad. Overall, she felt accomplished and like she had her crap together.

And then she walked into the house to find Scott working out.

He was dressed in only gym shorts and was lifting weights in his dining room. He was standing, legs braced, crutch nearby but not under his arm.

She did not have her crap as together as she had hoped.

She was wound up and completely turned on by…just him. In the past, she’d been attracted and turned on. But that had been before she really knew him. Not that she’d realized it. But now, after not even a week of living with him, she’d seen a sweet, sexy, funny side of him she hadn’t known before. And now she knew about his task force work and that he was an even bigger hero than she’d thought and…she just wanted him. So much more than she even had before. This was scary stuff.

His back was to her, and she just stared for several long, delicious moments as he curled the huge dumbbell, arms, shoulders and back muscles bunching and lengthening, his skin glistening slightly with sweat, as Miranda Lambert belted from the stereo system in the living room. Miranda. Peyton’s favorite bad-girl diva.

Peyton swiped a hand over her chin, making sure she wasn’t drooling. She could just sit and watch this for a few minutes. Or an hour. Or two.

Lord, there was a lot of skin and muscle going on there.

She took a deep breath, turned around, and left the house.

She was going to give in. She was going to take her clothes off and beg Scott to do wonderfully dirty things to her. But now it was going to be a really big deal. Or rather now, she realized that it was going to be a really big deal.

So, Peyton was up on a ladder cleaning the gutters when Scott came around the corner of the house an hour later.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She frowned down at him. He had his crutch with him, but she could tell he was more or less just carrying it rather than using it. He also had a shirt on now and his hair was wet.

“Wait, did you shower?”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked sheepish for a very brief moment. “What are you doing up on that ladder?”

“You showered?” she demanded. “By yourself? You didn’t even know I was here!”

“Maybe I was hoping you’d get here and walk in on me.”

She propped a hand on one hip while holding the gutter with the other. “You did not. And if you’re trying to get away with something, you should start sooner or buy a blow dryer so I don’t see the wet hair.”

He sighed.

“I don’t like that. What else have you been doing that you shouldn’t be?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Scott,” she said warningly. “I’ve been sneaking around and getting away with stuff for way longer than you have and you’re not very good at it. Don’t lie to me.”

“I went for a drive yesterday.”

“Scott!”

“I’m going crazy!” he exclaimed. “Sitting around here all day, doing nothing?”

“You have to be careful! You have to heal. I know it’s hard, but you can’t push this. You could hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“You shouldn’t be driving on those meds.”

“I’m not taking the meds during the day.”

“You could get sleepy or—” She stopped. “You’re not? At all?” She knew that he hadn’t taken much yesterday, but she didn’t realize that had become a regular thing.

He shook his head. “I take them at night because my leg gets really achy by morning, but during the day I’m doing okay. And I didn’t take them last night at all. In fact, I talked to Ed, and I’m going to go in and do some desk work starting next week.”

“Did you ask Kyle?”

Scott sighed. “Not yet.”

“You need to ask him first. And I’ll tell Ed that he can’t—”

“Leave Ed alone,” Scott said.

“But he needs—”

“Peyton,” Scott said, low and firm. “Leave Ed alone. And don’t go talking to Dottie about delivering lunch to me while I’m at the office. And don’t go talking to TJ about how we need to have a backup plan for Ed and me. And don’t ask Kyle or Derek or Hope or anyone else to check in on me at the office.”

She scowled. “You make it sound like I want to take care of you or something.”

He moved to the base of the ladder and gripped one of the rungs. “Tell you what—you want to be sure I eat lunch and that I’m taking it easy? You come to the office to check on me.”

She blinked down at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And if you bring me ham and cheese that you made yourself, I’ll even set you up on my desk and kiss you.”

She felt a little shiver go through her. She had a thing about him and his official police business stuff—his car, his uniform, his desk. His handcuffs. “Promise?”

“Definitely.” His voice had gotten husky.

“Well, in that case, can you go back to work tomorrow?”

He grinned, but his eyes scanned up and down the ladder. “Trouble, what are you doing on my ladder?”

“Cleaning out your gutters.”

He lifted that one brow in that sexy way that said he was pretty sure she was full of shit but he liked her anyway. She loved that look.

“You’re cleaning out my gutters?”

“They’re not actually too bad,” she said. It was April so there weren’t a lot of leaves to worry about, and it was clear that he had kept the gutters cleaned himself. Which made sense because…

“I clean your gutters.”

Yeah, he did. “I know.”

“But you thought you needed to clean mine?”

She shrugged. “I needed something to do, and I checked everything else out and there wasn’t really anything to fix or clean so, I climbed up here.”

“What else would you have fixed or cleaned?” he asked.

“Shutters, shingles, shed, lawn mower,” she said, naming off the things she’d checked out in her desperate attempt to stay out of the house.

Sure, her reason for getting out of the house was very different than her father’s had been, but she’d learned from the best about how to putter around and find out-of-the-house projects to work on. She’d been debating the wisdom of taking Scott’s lawn mower apart so she could put it back together. She was pretty sure she’d be able to get it back together correctly. Mostly.

“You would have cleaned my shed?” Scott was looking at her like he wasn’t sure who she was.

“I wouldn’t have loved it,” she told him dryly. “But yeah, I know how to use a broom.”

“And why would you have done this?”

“To uh…help you out.”

“I can give you a very short list of ways you can help me out, Trouble. And not one of them includes a broom.”

God, that low, sexy tone did it to her every time. She swallowed hard as heat swirled through her. Girlfriend stuff. Relationship stuff. You’re getting the hang of it. Kind of. Maybe. Don’t blow it now by saying something crazy dirty. But if you pulled my shorts down and put your mouth between my legs right here on this ladder, you’d be my favorite person ever was right on the tip of her tongue.

And speaking of tongues… She shook her head and took a breath. “I like doing this stuff too.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.” Well, she didn’t mind doing this stuff. Not as much as she’d like doing the mouth-between-her-legs stuff or the stuff Scott had in mind. But that was the point, right? To show him she was about more than that?

“Peyton?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

Oh, boy. He was going to kiss her. She could feel it. His voice, his eyes… “I don’t think I should.”

“You most definitely should.”

She really wanted him to kiss her. She was weak and needy and at the moment, she didn’t care a bit. She scooted down until she was at eye level with him.

He braced a hand on either side of the ladder, caging her in. “If you know how to do all of those things you mentioned,” he said, “how come I’ve been cleaning your gutters out for two years?”

Oh, that’s what he was thinking about. She made herself grin and said, “I like having a man slave.”

He shook his head slowly, eyes locked on hers. “Why really?”

She felt her smile die. How did this guy know her so well? She wet her lips and said honestly, “Because you needed to do those things.”

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t frown. He didn’t smile. He didn’t move. But he did ask, “How do you know that?”

“Because you take care of people. That’s your thing. And you like that I’m needy and dependent on you.”

And that right there was the issue. He did like that. And she kind of liked being that way. Except that this past week, she’d really liked being the one taking care of him and getting to know him and learning more about him.

Maybe he was going to have to get used to a little of that.

“I do like taking care of people,” he finally said. “But I did those things for you because I thought you needed them and I didn’t want you to have to depend on your dad.”

Peyton felt like he’d just sucked all of the air from her lungs. She stared at him. He’d been trying to keep her from needing her dad? “Why?” she asked softly.

“Because I saw too many times when you needed, or wanted, him to be there and he didn’t show.”

Yeah, he had seen that. There had been a few times when she’d gotten into trouble, had to call her dad, and then sat around waiting for him. She’d ended up sleeping in the cell at the jail one night. Scott had opened the door. He’d brought her food. He’d told her she could go. But where was she going to go? She’d still been living at home at that point. And yeah, she could have walked home from the jail, but there had been something that made her feel like she’d rather be in jail, at least kind of in jail, with Scott, than at home with her parents. So she’d curled up on the bed in the cell and gone to sleep. The next morning, when Dan had finally strolled in, she honestly thought Scott was going to take his head off.

“Is that why you gave me your number to call whenever I needed anything?” she asked. “Because you didn’t think my dad was dependable?”

“I wanted that to be the reason. I wanted to see you as this poor little thing that didn’t have anyone else.”

She looked at his chin instead of into his eyes. Pity. That was one thing she definitely didn’t want from Scott Hansen. “Well, I appreciated it.”

“But,” he said, putting a finger under her chin and tipping her head up to look at him again. “I felt that for about three minutes.”

She shouldn’t ask. She should keep her mouth shut. Or kiss him. Use the sex thing as a distraction. That she was really good at. But she heard her voice say, “So what did you feel?”

“Fascinated. Drawn in. Impressed.” He paused, then said gruffly, “Addicted.”

Peyton felt her heart warm and swell in her chest, and she fought not to let that all show on her face. “A cop who has a thing for bad girls. A little cliché, Officer.”

“You think that’s what it is?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve known bad girls before. And good girls. And I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you, Peyton.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. This was so much more than chemistry or even them being friends who wanted to sleep together or sort-of friends who liked to fight and wanted to sleep together.

“And you let me take care of you because you knew I needed that,” he said, almost to himself. He moved his hand to drag his thumb across her lower lip.

She wanted to suck it into her mouth so bad. But she made herself sit perfectly still.

“I did need that,” he said, a moment later, his eyes still on hers. “I needed to do something for you that you couldn’t do for yourself. But I’m starting to think there isn’t anything like that.”

For some reason, Peyton felt tears stinging at the back of her eyes. Yes, she was self-sufficient. But she couldn’t deny feeling like she needed Scott.

“Just because I can clean gutters out, doesn’t mean I don’t need anything from you.” She was going down. She was losing the game of chicken. And it was going to be glorious.

He gave a single nod. “And just because my gutters are already clean doesn’t mean I don’t need anything from you.”

“What do you need from me?” she asked.

“For you to let me handcuff you to my headboard.”

Want shot through her so fast and hot that Peyton actually felt a little dizzy. “You want to handcuff me to your headboard?”

He shook his head. “It was want to a week ago. Now it’s need to.”

“I’ve been sweet,” she said softly.

“Yep. I’m pretty sure it was the sticky notes that totally did me in.”

She’d felt silly about those more than anything. “Yeah?”

“I was in trouble when you made me breakfast even that first time. Then it got worse when you started texting me. But then you left me sticky notes and I was done for.”

Peyton grinned, pleasure spinning through her. This was a new kind of pleasure though. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt anything like it. “Those were okay?”

“Those were very okay,” he said gruffly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling almost giddy. “Well, then, Officer Hansen, I really think I need to be handcuffed. For being good.”

He gave her a naughty, very bad-boy grin. “Imagine that.”

Then he kissed her. And Peyton actually felt her toes curl. She didn’t know that that could really happen, but right there in her tennis shoes, Scott Hansen curled her toes.

His mouth was hungry on hers, his tongue hot and possessive, as were the big hands that scooped under her butt and pulled her off the ladder. He set her on the ground and then cupped her head, holding her still while he kissed her as if he’d never get enough.

Peyton found herself gripping his biceps and going up on tiptoe to get closer. This was why she wore heels. She was too damned short for this.

He pulled back as she made a sort-of-turned-on, sort-of-frustrated groaning noise.

“I wish like hell I could pick you up and carry you into my bedroom.”

Yeah, she wished like hell he could do that too. “Well, the good stuff happens after we get to the bedroom,” she told him. “I assume you can handle everything once we’re there?”

His eyes darkened and he leaned in, his mouth nearly on hers. “I promise you, if I tell you to get on and ride me, you won’t know if it’s because my leg is hurting or because I just really want to see you on top, playing with your nipples and making yourself come on my cock.”

Peyton felt her panties begin to melt. But she concentrated on what he’d said—before the nipples and cock stuff. “Is your leg hurting?”

“I’m barely aware I have a leg.”

“Do you think this will hurt it?”

“I think that I don’t care and I promise that you won’t either.”

She blew out a short breath. “Scott—”

“Peyton, I fucking love that you’re all into taking care of me,” he said, shutting her up. “But here is how you can take care of me right now—take off your clothes, get on my bed, put your arms over your head, and don’t hold back one moan, request, demand or ‘oh my God, Scott, you’re the best I’ve ever had’. Got it?”

She swallowed hard. “Leg? What leg?”

“That’s my girl.”

Peyton felt her heart squeeze at that and gave him one last hard kiss. “Let’s do this thing.” Then she leaned back and pulled her shirt off over her head.

He gave a pained half laugh, half groan. “In the house, Trouble. Strip down in the house.”

She grinned. “Right. Okay.”

He stepped back and she slipped around him, heading for the door. She looked back when she didn’t feel or hear him right behind her. He was on his way across the lawn to his car.

“Come on, Big Shot.” She reached behind and unclasped her bra as she climbed the front steps of his porch.

“Gotta grab my cuffs.”

Peyton felt her body go soft. Handcuffed to his bed. Yes, please. And she wasn’t really the type to let someone take over like that. But Scott? Oh, yeah, no question. He’d used them on her on St. Patrick’s Day too, and that had been the hottest experience of her life. Now on his bed? With him able to do so much more than he could on the hood of his car in the dark? Peyton practically ran to the bedroom, praying that his leg wouldn’t keep him from some of the things she really hoped he’d do.