I don’t know why Jenny’s words touched something deep inside of me. Without asking what I wanted or needed, she’d known. She’d sent me straight to the shower so I could get the stink of a bull off. I had turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it, letting the heat and water cleanse me. Feeling somewhat better, I’d walked into the kitchen to find that she had the perfect meal waiting for me. Now I was following her to my bedroom, so she could take care of me. Whatever that meant. Sex, hopefully.

When I’d left the station, it had been with the intention to go straight home, take a shower, and then fall into bed. Wrestling bulls was hard work, and I was dead tired. Without even thinking about it, though, I’d made a detour to Vincennes, hoping I could talk her into coming home with me. I’d wanted to tell her about my day with Beauregard the Bull, then spoon my body around hers while I slept.

My gaze roamed over her back and ass, and I chuckled at the part of me that was making itself known, protesting the idea of doing nothing but holding her. Stepping next to her, I tucked her hair behind her ear for no other reason than I wanted to touch her. “Thank you,” I said softly.

“For?”

“For being here with me tonight, and for the best grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had.”

Her eyes turned soft as she smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Daisy whined, begging for attention. I’d forgotten I had a dog. “Get in your bed, Daisy.” I walked over to the large dog bed I’d bought yesterday. Had it only been yesterday? It seemed like a hundred years ago. She’d wanted to get in bed with me after I’d brought her home, but that was one thing I was going to put my foot down about. She gave me a baleful look but stepped onto the bed, making a few circles before settling down to work on her dog bone chew.

“Good girl.” I turned to go back to Jenny and stilled. She’d taken off her top and stood at the edge of my bed, crooking her finger at me the way she’d done in the kitchen when she’d told me to follow her. Her lips curved into a smirk, telling me she was fully aware of what she was doing to me.

I walked toward her, my eyes locked on hers. I reached for her, needing to touch those breasts that were calling to me.

She shook her head. “Not yet. Get in bed. On your stomach.”

“Have I told you that I like this bossy side of you?”

“I’m real good at bossy. In the bed, Dylan.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I was definitely curious to find out. “Can I take my pants off?”

“Not yet.” She pointed. “Bed.”

I did as ordered. She picked up a bottle of lotion from the bedside table that she must have put there while I was in the shower. “Am I about to get a massage?”

“You are.” She straddled my back. “Did you know I’m a licensed massage therapist?”

“Can’t say I did.” I glanced back at her and came close to flipping over and putting my mouth on one of those beautiful breasts. “Were you a topless masseuse? Because if you were and I’d known…ah, that feels good.”

“No, silly man. You’re my first topless massage. What’s this?” She pressed her fingers to my side. “You have a big bruise here.”

“Courtesy of one pissed-off bull. I’m pretty sure he aimed to kill me, but Granny grabbed his nose with her fist and walked the damn thing right into the trailer.”

“Didn’t Gene go out with you? Where was he?”

“Up a tree where Granny’s hound dogs had chased him.”

Her hands stilled. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Red, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.” She laughed so hard that she fell over onto the bed.

I turned onto my side, grinning at her. All afternoon I’d held in my amusement at the entire situation. Granny glaring at me with her pipe sticking out of her mouth because I’d come to take her pet bull, Gene hanging from a tree limb, pants torn, as three flea-bitten hounds tried to climb up after him, and then to top it all off, Hamburger showing up, trying to bribe me with moonshine. A lifetime’s supply in exchange for not taking away Granny’s bull.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and Jenny and I laughed until tears poured from our eyes. “I got Mr. Scroggins to agree to let Granny visit Beauregard twice a week,” I said when I could speak again.

“Visiting hours for a bull. That’s hilarious.” She giggled. “On the plus side, if he goes missing again, you’ll know right where to find him.”

“True.”

“You’re a good man, Dylan Conrad. Now roll over again so I can make you feel better.”

The massage was sigh-inducing pleasurable, and my eyes drifted closed. When she was done, I planned to thoroughly show my masseuse my appreciation for all that she’d done for me tonight.

Sunlight lasered bright beams right through my eyelids. I blinked my eyes open and stared at the ceiling fan blades circling slowly overhead for a moment. The last thing I remembered was Jenny straddling my back, her clever fingers soothing my aching muscles.

I was embarrassed that I’d conked out on her last night. Turning on my side, I faced her. She was on her stomach, her beautiful red hair hiding her face. The cover was pushed down to her waist, and I lifted it to see if she’d left her pant bottoms on. No, she hadn’t, but I saw the thin waistband of her thong. The sight of her perfect bottom was all it took to wake up the little man.

Jenny wasn’t a morning person. She slept hard, so I didn’t worry about waking her as I kicked off my pajama bottoms, then dug out a condom from my nightstand and put it on. There was nothing better than lazy morning sex, and no better way to wake up Jenny Girl.

I pressed my body against hers, nuzzling her neck and smiling into her hair at hearing her sigh. She grumbled something when my hand traced the shape of her back and ass. “Grouchy girl,” I murmured.

She snuggled her face into her pillow. “Mawh wah.”

“Is that so?” I slipped my fingers between her legs and then inside her panties. It only took a few minutes of playing with her before she was wet and ready. She turned her face toward me, peeking at me with one eye half open.

“You got something in mind this morning, Dylan?”

“I sure do. Panties off.” She lifted her sexy ass so I could pull them down. “Sorry I fell asleep on you last night.”

She gave me a sleepy smile. “That’s okay. I think you’re about to make it up to me.”

“I’m going to do my best. Turn over on your side with your back to me.” She pushed her body against me, and I put my hand on her hip as I slid into her. “I wish you could be me for a few minutes so you’d know how good it feels to be inside you.”

“I don’t think it could possibly be better than how I’m feeling.”

Maybe, but I didn’t think so. She took my hand and moved it to her breast. I buried my face against her neck and breathed in her scent as I made love to her. There was no rush to reach the end, no need for hard and fast. That was what I loved about morning sex, the softness of it.

“Dylan,” she whispered.

That was it, just my name spoken softly as she came. It was sexy as hell, and I let go, climaxing with her. I kissed her neck, holding her close. She fell back to sleep, and lying there next to her, I wondered if I liked her in my bed a little too much. She had plans that didn’t include me, and I didn’t want to be left behind, missing her. One woman I’d loved had already left me, and I had no desire to lose another.

The trick was to not fall in love with Jenny, and I’d thought I could guard my heart against that happening. Now I wasn’t so sure I could do that if I kept seeing her.

Disturbed by my thoughts, I slipped out of bed. After dressing, I took Daisy for a long walk. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to do about Jenny. I liked being with her. She was funny and caring, and then there was the sex. We were good together, whether we were going at it like frenzied got-to-have-it-right-now bunnies or like the sensual half-asleep coupling this morning.

“What should I do, Daisy?” She paused in sniffing a bush to look up at me, gave me what appeared to be a doggie shrug, then went back to sniffing things that were more interesting than my girl problems.

We were on a nature path that circled my complex. It took a good twenty minutes to walk it, and we were five minutes from making it back to where we’d started when Daisy growled. Her fur rose in a razor-sharp line down her back, and she stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop.

“What’s wrong, girl?” The dog’s behavior was scaring me, and I regretted that I hadn’t brought my gun with me. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Daisy let out another growl as she pushed against me, forcing me to step back.

Then I heard it. A sinister shhhhhhhhhh sound, something like dried beans being furiously shaken in a paper cup. The leaves in the path two feet from where we’d been moved, and the pointed head of a snake lifted, his tongue flickering in the air. Behind him his tail rose, the rattlers making their get-away-from-me-or-you’ll-die warning. The middle part of the body was still hidden by the leaves, but the head was large and it looked to me like it was a big, full-grown bastard.

“Fuck me,” I whispered. Daisy pushed me back again, and I gladly let her. Two more steps and I would have gotten way more up close and personal with a snake than I ever wanted to be. Having grown up in a big city, the only snakes I’d ever seen had been in a zoo behind glass. I hadn’t even liked them then, and I sure as hell didn’t like having a close encounter with one.

Daisy and I kept backing away. The snake slithered out from under the leaves, and I estimated it to be a good four to five feet long. It disappeared into the brush, leaving me with a pounding heart. As soon as it was gone, Daisy started back down the path. I debated going back the way we’d come, but we were almost to the end. Daisy didn’t seem concerned, so I’d trust her instincts, especially since she’d kept me from ending up in the hospital.

“Good girl, Daisy.” I scratched around her ears, where she loved it the most, making her feathery tail wag. We finished our walk with no further deadly encounters. As we emerged from the woods, I looked up to see Jenny standing on my balcony, watching us. She smiled and waved, and all I could think about was getting her back into bed.

“A timber rattler,” Gene Lanier said. “They’re common in this area.”

We were sitting in my office that afternoon, going over the Gertie Jansen case. I’d told him about my early morning encounter, and didn’t at all like hearing timber rattlers were common. Daisy and I liked that path, but I didn’t care for meeting up with another snake.

“All I know is that’s the last time I’ll walk in the woods without my gun.” I glanced at Daisy, curled up in her dog bed in the corner of my office. She was my hero of the day, and I’d given her extra treats when we’d gotten inside my place, and then I’d sweet-talked Jenny back into bed.

“People don’t usually smile when talking about rattlesnakes, Chief.”

Thinking of loving on Jenny tended to make me smile, but I wasn’t about to share that. “So you don’t think the prosecutor’s going to press charges against Gertie?” I hoped not.

“That’s the vibe I’m getting.” Gene stood and closed the door. “Moody’s raising all kinds of stink about Gertie not already being in jail.”

“Screw Moody. He’s in my doghouse for too many things to count.”

“I stopped by Gertie’s on my way home last night,” Gene said. “The guilt of what she did is eating her up.”

“The man about killed her. She was justified in doing what she had to do to protect herself.” From what we’d learned, Jansen had beat on his wife on a regular basis. I’d seen too many battered women in my line of work who’d lost their lives because they’d let a man treat them like a punching bag. As far as I was concerned, good for Gertie Jansen.

“I’ve made an appointment for her with a therapist who specializes in helping battered women. My wife’s taking her this afternoon.”

“You’re a good man, Gene.” Truthfully, other than Jansen and Moody, I had a pretty damn good police force. Jansen’s fate I wouldn’t have wished for, but I planned to do whatever I could to see that his wife stayed out of prison and got the help she needed.

Gene shrugged as if he’d not done anything out of the ordinary. “She was my babysitter, so I’ve known her a long time. She should have left Jansen years ago.”

“Unfortunately that’s too often the case where battered women are concerned.”

“Sadly true. At least we settled a long-running dispute yesterday, so not every situation turns out to be tragic.”

I eyed him with a smirk. “I was pretty impressed with your tree-climbing skills.”

His cheeks turned pink. “How much to keep that to yourself, Chief?”

“There’s not enough money in the world.” I chuckled when he narrowed his eyes. “Besides, Hamburger Harry and Granny witnessed your ass hanging out of your torn pants, so it’s not just me you have to worry about.” I had no intention of repeating the story—other than to Jenny, and I trusted her not to spread it around.

“Won’t matter if you do.” He let out a sigh. “Hamburger’s a storyteller. He’s probably already put his own spin on it and telling anyone who’ll listen.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, no one will hear it from me. If those dogs had come after me, I would’ve been up that tree with you.”

My phone buzzed, Kim Payton’s name coming up on the screen. The information my officer gave me wasn’t surprising. “Stephanie Jenkins tested twice the legal limit,” I told Gene after disconnecting.

“I figured she would. How do you want to handle it?”

This was the touchiest of the situations we had going on. “We’re going to have to charge her with a DUI, of course. Let me talk to the mayor first, tell him what’s going to happen.” Jim John definitely wasn’t going to be happy.

What I’d rather do was find Jenny, take her back to my place, and lock the door against the world for at least a week. Even that wouldn’t be enough time with her, though. Gene left, and I swiveled my chair to face the window, my gaze on the mountains rising up behind the town. I loved it here, wanted to make a home here, a wife, kids, all that jazz.

If Jenny weren’t leaving soon, I’d want to explore that possibility with her. But she was, and already there was going to be a small hole in my heart that she was going to leave behind. I think if I asked her to stay, she would consider it, but I wouldn’t. If she did, a year from now, ten years, or twenty, she’d regret not following her dream. Nor would I tell her I’d wait for her. She needed to go, free of any baggage. If she met someone on her travels and fell in love, I wouldn’t have her feeling guilty over me.

I had two choices. Stop seeing her or make sure I guarded my heart. Since I didn’t want to stop seeing her, guard my heart it was.