Chapter Seven

 

Summer woke with a start. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. She didn’t recognize the room, the bed, anything. She heard a thunk that came from outside the bedroom door.

Tim.

It all came back to her. She was in Tim’s house, sleeping in his bed—waiting on him to come home. She blinked at the clock—6:18. Was he just getting home? Was everything okay?

She slipped out of bed and cautiously opened the door. The smell of coffee hit her nose the same moment she heard soft voices.

“…Shoot anyone?” That was Georgey.

“Not fatally,” Tim replied. He sounded bone tired. “You were right about Levi. Do me a favor, kid—don’t tell anyone else what you told me.”

“What happened?” As tired as Tim sounded, Georgey sounded equally excited. If not more so.

“You know what happened. Jack and I met them from opposite angles and Nobody drifted around the perimeter, picking off the easy ones.” There was a pause. “It’s good you weren’t there, kid. There were a lot of shots fired. It got messy.”

Summer gave silent thanks Georgey had been sulking here.

“Did you see who shot you?”

Oh, Lord—he’d been shot? Summer flung herself into the room. “Are you okay?” she demanded. Then she stopped.

Because Sheriff Tim Means was leaning against the kitchen counter without a shirt on. His pants were unbuckled and the top button was undone, giving her a glimpse of the line of dark hair that dipped below his fly.

Her brain was having trouble processing his chest. There were small scars and a few larger ones crisscrossing his biceps and chest. He was lean and muscled and she couldn’t believe she’d ever thought this man had a beer gut because there wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on him.

Tim looked at her. He lifted one eyebrow, but he made no move to buckle up or grab a shirt.

That was when she realized he also didn’t have any open gunshot wounds on him.

“Summer, check this out,” Georgey said with unabashed adoration in his voice. “I mean, this is so cool!”

Summer could barely tear her gaze away from Tim’s chest, but she didn’t have much choice when Georgey held the vest up in front of her. It took a moment to comprehend what she was seeing—the same vest Tim had worn last night, except now there was a dent in the front almost two inches wide.

She stared at that dent, then her gaze jolted back to Tim’s chest. She stepped forward and saw what she’d missed the first time—the darker red spot under his left pec. Already, it was deepening to angry purple. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Been better. Been worse.”

She looked up at him and saw the dark circles under his eyes.

“How about you? You have a quiet night?”

She stared at him but he just sipped his coffee, as if this were another Saturday morning and not him coming close to being killed in a gang war. “I was worried about you,” she admitted.

That got a smirk out of him. “I’m not the one you should be worried about.” He broke her gaze and turned his attention back to Georgey, who’d spread the vest out on the kitchen table. “Jack got grazed by a bullet, but it was a scratch. I didn’t see who shot me, but there were only a few people with guns.”

Summer stared at his chest again. “You need to ice that.” Without waiting for an answer, she pulled open the freezer door. He had one tray of ice. She started rummaging through the cabinets, hoping to find a baggie or something, but in the end she had to settle for a washcloth. She dumped half the ice in, tied the ends together and turned back to where Tim watched her with an amused smile on his face.

“Here,” she said, pressing the ice pack against his chest. His bare chest.

His gaze dipped and Summer realized she was still in her pajamas. Which meant she didn’t have on a bra.

It was at that exact moment her nipples decided to join the conversation, tightening underneath the T-shirt until she could feel them pointing through the fabric. Tim’s gaze snapped back up, his pupils widening as he stared at her.

“Can I really ride along with you next time you do this?” Georgey said, apparently blissfully unaware Tim and Summer were engaged in something deeper than first aid.

“What? No,” Summer said quickly. “You are absolutely not allowed to go along to a shootout and that is final, young man.”

“Aww,” Georgey started to whine.

But Tim cut him off. “Your sister’s right. You’d just get yourself killed.”

“Would not,” Georgey protested. “I know how to shoot. I can handle a gun.”

Summer twisted so she could stare at the young man without letting go of the ice pack. Which meant she was leaning up against the counter, more or less nestled against Tim’s side. “Don’t make me ground you,” she said. Then Tim’s arm came to rest around her waist and whatever else she was going to say got lost on the way to her mouth.

“Kid,” Tim said in a stern voice, “Jack and I are both ex-military and I’ve got a degree in criminal justice. It’s not enough to know how to handle a gun. If you’d been there last night, either somebody would’ve killed you or you would’ve killed somebody and trust me, that’s not something to be taken lightly. You want to be a warrior, you have to earn that right.”

Georgey opened his mouth to shoot off a smart-ass reply, no doubt, but for the first time, he seemed to notice they were both in the room—together. He almost physically recoiled as Tim’s hand fell away from Summer’s waist.

Tim reached up and pulled her hand, with the frozen pack, away from his chest. “Put this back in the freezer for me, will you? I’m going to take a shower. Then I need to sleep for a couple hours. Do you think you can get Georgey to the Clinic so he can finish working on the window?”

Frankly, she wasn’t entirely sure she could find the Clinic. But compared to Tim’s problems, that seemed like a minor issue. “Will you be okay?”

He shrugged and, in the process, stepped away from her. “Just need some sleep. A few hours and I’ll be as good as new.”

Summer eyed the deepening bruise on his chest. She had her doubts about that, but she said, “We’ll get out of your way, then.” She turned to Georgey. “Do we need to swing by your grandma’s house and get some of your things?”

She realized immediately it was not the right thing to say. Georgey’s cheeks shot bright red. “I don’t have anything else,” he said.

“Oh.” She felt stupid. She’d had students who were poor before. She should’ve known he wouldn’t have this huge wardrobe or a bunch of stuff to pack. “Then we’ll need to start a list,” she said because she had to say something. “But,” she hurried to add when Georgey’s eyes lit up, “you still have to pay Tim back for the window or however that works. You’re on your own for that.”

***

It took longer than Tim expected for Georgey and Summer to get out of the house. Georgey spent another twenty minutes in the bathroom, then Summer had to shower. During which time, Tim had to not think about Summer being in the shower.

He also had to not think about the way she’d looked when she’d burst out of the bedroom this morning, her hair tousled and her face creased from the pillow.

He’d wanted to do nothing more than pull her into his arms, tell her he’d had a long night, and lead her right back to bed. He was hurting and she’d looked like the best kind of painkiller—warm and soft and more than enough to take his mind off the hurt.

Then he’d seen her nipples tighten under her T-shirt and she’d curled up against his side and what little grip he had on his control had started to shake.

No, he’d never given his bed up to anyone else. But for her? Yeah, he’d make an exception. Right now he was too tired to do anything but sleep, but when the Tylenol kicked in and he’d gotten some sleep?

He wanted to find out exactly what it took to make her nipples tighten up again. He wanted to find out how those nipples felt in his mouth and he wanted to know what noises she’d make when he sucked.

Instead, he stood in his kitchen and drank more coffee and prayed he’d get at least two hours of sleep before his phone rang again.

Finally, though, they were gone. Tim took a hot shower and then got out Summer’s homemade ice pack and wrapped it against his chest with an elastic bandage. Technically, he'd lied. He knew damn well he wasn’t going to be all right after a couple of hours asleep. His chest throbbed and he knew from experience he’d be sore for days. Better than being dead, of course, but still a pain in the ass—or the chest, as it were. He sprawled out on the bed on his back, a towel underneath his ribs to catch the melted ice. Then he closed his eyes.

Normally, Tim could fall sleep at the drop of a hat. It was a life skill, after all. You slept when you could and worked when you had to.

But he hadn’t counted on the lingering smell of Summer Collins in his bed. The pillowcase held the faintest whiff of vanilla and something else—the unique scent of Summer.

He was bad at flirting. He’d never been good at it and he was way out of practice. Still, even an old man like him knew that when a woman looked at him like that and held ice against his chest when there was nothing wrong with his arm—that was some kind of flirtation. What he didn’t know was, when she’d turned to look at Georgey and stepped into his arms and he’d put his hand around her waist just because she’d felt so good against him, was that flirting, too? Or was that the exhaustion talking?

She hadn’t twisted out of his grasp or pushed his hand away, but she had told him in no uncertain terms she was going to check on his bruising again later tonight and he had better sleep while they were gone.

It was a promise he hoped like hell she was going to keep.

***

Normally, Tim’s sleep was blackness. He didn’t dream, or if he did, he didn’t remember it. But today, odd, disjointed images floated around his mind. Bodies moving together and apart and he had a gun—he always had a gun. There was something he wanted to be doing, something that seemed important, but he had the gun in his hand and he couldn’t reach the body next to him. Whoever it was, she danced and spun just out of his grasp, an impression more than a person.

Weird, he thought. And he was cognizant enough to know that thought in and of itself was unusual.

Then something touched his shoulder and cut through the weird dream. Instinct took over. He reached up and grabbed the wrists of the person who’d managed to sneak into his house, and rolled. Before he even got his eyes open, he had the intruder trapped underneath him and he was trying to reach for the gun under his pillow. Except it wasn’t there. Dammit.

“Oh!” A soft feminine voice squeaked from under him.

His eyelids were heavy and he realized he’d been asleep. “Who are you,” he demanded as he forced his eyes open.

That was when he realized he'd pinned Summer to his bed. He had her by her wrists and her body was warm and soft underneath his.

Oh, shit.

“Tim?” Her eyes were wide—the kind of eyes a man could get lost in—and she should have been terrified. But he didn’t think she was. Maybe a little alarmed. He couldn’t really blame her for that.

“Tim?” she asked again and he realized he hadn’t answered her yet.

His brain felt like sludge and he was vaguely aware this was the worst thing he had done all day. Probably all week. “What are you doing here? Where’s Georgey?”

Amazingly, instead of kicking and screaming and trying to throw him off her—all things she should’ve done—one corner of her mouth quirked up. “He’s at the Clinic,” she said in a remarkably calm voice, given the circumstances. “Jack was there, getting some stitches. He told me to tell you…” Her voice drifted off.

Tim tried not to think about the way her body was molding itself to his. Soft. She was so soft.

“He said the state troopers were watching the prisoners, but you need to get down there sooner rather than later. I gathered they didn’t want Jack bleeding all over the place,” she added, her smile growing slightly. “Apparently he tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. So he’s keeping an eye on Georgey and I offered to come check on you.”

He’d slept through the phone? And the state troopers were taking over his station? Tim winced, which she took the wrong way.

“Are you okay?” She pulled one of her wrists free from his hand and then she was touching him. Her fingers slid down his side, over his ribs until they hit the bandage and he almost lost what little self-control he was hanging onto, because she was touching him and looking at him with those beautiful eyes and he wasn’t going to make it.

“Your ice melted,” she told him.

“Yeah.” Great. He sounded like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to get his brain or his mouth to function.

Something in her eyes changed. “I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said, her voice growing even quieter.

“It’s okay,” he said, mentally ordering his brain to get with it. “I should get up anyway.”

Neither of them moved. He still had her head bracketed with his forearms, her one hand pinned over her head. She was still lightly tracing his ribs.

And he was going to kiss her. It probably wasn’t the right thing to do. It definitely wasn’t the smart thing to do. There were a lot of really good reasons why he shouldn’t cross this line with her. But he was having trouble thinking of any of them right now.

All he could think about was the way her body fit against his, how pretty she was.

How she wasn’t clawing his eyes out or calling him names.

She moved first. Her free hand left his bandage behind and skimmed over his chest, then up his neck. She stroked the side of his face and tucked a hank of his hair behind his ear. Then, somehow, her fingers were tangled in his hair and she was pulling him down to her.

“Summer,” he whispered against her skin and then he was kissing her. Maybe this was just a hyper-real dream, because the feel of Summer, the way her mouth moved against his, the way she opened and sighed into him—this couldn’t be real. If he was asleep, he sure as hell didn’t want to wake up.

Summer’s tongue traced his lips and he groaned. He shifted and she shifted with him, her legs wrapping around his and pulling him down harder into her. God, how long had it been? Months? Years? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was it had been too long since he’d been tangled up with a woman in this bed, lips and hands and legs everywhere.

He shifted again, releasing her wrist and propping himself up so he could touch her. He cupped her breast and squeezed—maybe not as gently as he should have, because she gasped and broke the kiss. But before he could apologize for being too rough, she arched into his touch, her head thrown back against the pillow and her mouth open.

“Pretty,” he managed to get out and then his hips moved without his explicit permission, grinding his dick against her. “So damn pretty,” he said again because it was true and also because he didn’t want her to leave. Not now.

“Tim…”

In the other room, his phone rang.

They both froze, eyes wide.

“I’m supposed to be checking on you,” she whispered.

“I’m supposed to be down at the station,” he replied.

Neither one moved. The phone kept ringing.

Summer’s lips twisted into a smile Tim hoped was more amused than anything else. Then she shifted and put her hands on his chest. With a gentle push, she said, “Here. Sit back and let me look at you.”

Tim lifted an eyebrow at her but did as she asked, sitting on his heels. She scooted into a cross-legged position, still close enough to touch. But he didn’t. The moment was over and his brain had stopped misfiring. He shouldn’t be fooling around with the guardian of someone in his custody. Not if he wanted to and not even if she wanted to.

She started to unwrap the bandage around his chest. The ice had melted completely and the whole thing was sopping. He glanced down and saw her shirt was wet too, from where he’d been laying on her. “Sorry,” he said as she worked.

“For what?” Somehow she managed to sound like this was just another day. Maybe it was for her.

But it wasn’t for him. “For…” He was pretty sure there were several things he needed to apologize for. But he wasn’t as awake as he’d like to be. Not yet, anyway. “I sort of tackled you.” It could have been worse, he realized. His gun wasn’t under the pillow where it normally was. If he’d managed to get a grip on his pistol, he didn’t think the encounter would’ve ended with kissing. Thank God for small favors.

She shrugged. “I sort of snuck up on you while you were sleeping. Your self-preservation instincts are hardwired, aren’t they? Oh,” she gasped as the bandage fell away and she got a good look at his chest.

“How bad is it?” Tim tried to glance down but he didn’t have a good angle on it and he couldn’t bend to get a better one without his ribs screaming in protest.

“It’s…” She looked up at him and he thought she looked green around the gills. “Maybe you should go to the clinic,” she finished.

Tim took a couple deep breaths but there was no stabbing pain. Just the dull ache. He could live with a dull ache. “I don’t think anything’s broken and if it is, all they can do is wrap it.”

Her gaze dropped back to what must be some truly spectacular bruising. “Are you sure?”

It was odd, having someone worry about him. Sure, Jack worried about him—but only to the extent of whether Tim could still do his job.

No one was ever worried about him. And just like that, he wanted to kiss her more. Harder.

The phone rang again. “Dammit,” he mumbled. He leaned down as best he could without losing his balance or making his ribs scream and he pressed his lips to hers. But quickly. “I have to go.” He scooted off the bed and made sure his legs were under him.

“At least let me wrap your chest,” she said as he slid his closet door open and reached for a clean uniform shirt. “If nothing else, you need the extra padding.”

He half turned to look at her. She climbed off the bed and waited. His first instinct was to say he didn’t need any extra padding. But the half turn had strained his ribs and besides, he was finding it increasingly difficult to say no to her. “Okay.”

He headed to the bathroom, where he’d left his first aid kit spread all over the counter. He dug around until he found another elastic bandage and handed it to her. Then he turned to face the mirror and got a good look at his body.

The bruise was stunning, almost the size of a soccer ball. It started below his left pectoral muscle and wrapped around his side. On some level, he was aware he should hurt more than he did. Gunshots hurt like a bitch. Plus there wasn’t exactly a budget for replacing his dented armor. He was also aware that, if he had newer equipment, he might not have a bruise that looked this bad.

“Arms up,” Summers said in an efficient voice. He did as he was told and lifted his arms up as high as they would go. The right one went farther than the left. Summer sighed, which made him smile.

No doubt, she was thinking to herself, Men.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he reassured her.

“So you said.” She made a tsking noise as she wrapped the bandage around his chest. “Does this happen often?”

Tim watched her in the mirror. The fuzziness of sleep was fading from his mind, but the urge to kiss her? Still there. “Which this? The part where I get shot or the part where I pin a beautiful woman to my bed and kiss her?”

She paused, her shoulders tense. He shouldn’t have said that. He wasn’t sure if it was the nap or what, but this was not normally how he rolled.

She continued to rewrap his chest. “Both, I suppose,” she said in a pinched voice and he knew he’d embarrassed her.

“I don’t normally pin women to my bed. I didn’t realize it was you and again, I’m sorry I scared you.” He did not, however, apologize for kissing her. He wasn’t sure he would even if she punched him in the ribs.

She adjusted the bandage and tucked in the loose ends. “And getting shot?”

He tried to shrug but it pulled, so he stopped. “It happens. There are plenty of people who aren’t happy to see me. That’s nothing new.”

Summer stood back and admired her handiwork. Then, in the mirror, she met his gaze. She looked like she wanted to say something—and God, Tim wanted her to say something. He wanted to know he hadn’t scared her. No, that wasn’t enough—he wanted to know she’d wanted him to keep kissing her, that he hadn’t misunderstood the way she kissed him back.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t think I belong here.”

Tim was not the most sensitive guy. But he was pretty sure he caught her meaning. She didn’t know what she was doing kissing him. “You do,” he told her. “You can always come back to the rez.” Because if she came back…

Tim was getting ahead of himself. He hadn’t even made it through today. And he had a lot of daylight left.

They stood there for a moment longer, neither of them moving. This seemed to be a trend. Normally, Tim was a man of action. But not when Summer was around. He could stand here and look at her all day.

She made a movement, like she wanted to step into him but then thought better of it. “Will I see you again later?” she asked.

To hell with that. Tim lifted his right arm—the good one—and draped it over her shoulder, pulling her into him. “I have to deal with the state troopers and finish processing last night’s shootout. But after that—I sure hope so.”

She leaned into him, her body warm against his. It was the sort of touch that seemed to say more kissing could happen. More everything could happen.

What he wouldn’t give to pull her right back into the bed and curl up with her.

God, he liked holding her. They looked good together. Her head came up to his chin and, as she leaned against his shoulder, he found himself wanting to make all sorts of promises to her, how he’d keep her safe and keep her loved.

“You didn’t, you know. Scare me.”

He looked down at her. “Do you normally have men pounce on you like that?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure that was the first time.”

“Still, I’ll try not to do it again. The pouncing, that is.”

Something in her eyes changed—deepened. She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Right. No more pouncing.”

His heart began to pound because that sounded almost like an invitation. What the hell. She was already in his arms. He was already in deep. “I’m going to kiss you again.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fluttered and she tilted her head back—and the damned phone rang again.

Tim groaned and Summer stepped away from him. “Tonight?”

Hell, yeah. “Tonight,” he agreed.

“Good.” She stood on her tiptoes to press her lips against his—another short kiss that held more promise than heat. “Now go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” So he went.

But he was coming back tonight.