American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (17 page)

“Go get yourself something to eat
and bring back something for your mother, me and Beau,” he told them.  “Go out
of the driveway and take a right and you’ll run straight into Mama’s, but if
you don’t want that, keep going and you’ll run into several restaurants down by
the highway.”

“Cool, dude,” Alec grinned at the
money. “Thanks!”

“Can I go to the market, too?”
Penelope wanted to know. “There isn’t any food in this house at all.”

Before Elliot could answer, Nash
pulled out another sixty dollars from his wallet and handed it to Penelope.

“There’s a big market right next
to Mama’s, you can’t miss it,” he told her. “While you’re there, buy a
Styrofoam cooler and some ice so you can keep milk in it. Get whatever sixty
bucks will buy you.”

Penelope grinned broadly.
“Thanks!” she said, turning to push Alec out of the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Alec wouldn’t be pushed
away from a man giving out money so easily. “I need a car, dude. Can you spare
a few thousand dollars from your magic wallet?”

Nash grinned as Penelope shoved
her brother out of the door.  He could hear them bickering all the way down the
hall and down the stairs. When the voices faded away, he turned to Elliot,
still sitting on the bed.  She was looking at him reproachfully.

“Now you’ve done it,” she shook
her head at him. “Now that they know you’ll give them money, it’s like feeding
a cat. You’ll never get rid of them.”

He laughed softly and unhooked his
big police belt with the flashlight and other implements on it, laying it on
the nearest box.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “They’re
good kids.”

She watched him unbutton the top
of his uniform shirt. “You really didn’t have to do that,” she said softly.

He nodded, sitting on the bed
beside her. “Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

He grinned at her, a very sexy
gesture that sent her heart leaping.  Then he leaned forward on one big arm,
reaching up to push a stray piece of hair from her face.

“Because we now have at least an
hour to ourselves with no interruptions,” he said softly. “I wonder what we can
do with that time?”

She gave him such a knowing look
that he started to laugh.  Shifting on the bed, Elliot wrapped her arms around
his neck and pulled him down on top of her. Nash’s mouth was on hers, instantly.
Now, they intended to finish what they started.

Nash could feel her all wrapped
up around him, her sexy little body clinging to him. His passion, his lust,
roared to life and the hand that had only danced around her belly and back now
snaked beneath her shirt, moving for her breasts. 

Elliot didn’t wait for him; she
unhooked her bra and her breasts sprang free just as his hand closed in over
her left breast.  She groaned softly as his hand came into contact with her naked
flesh. It had been so long since she’d last felt a man against her that her
natural instincts at self-protection completely vanished.   She wanted Nash as
badly as he wanted her.

The t-shirt came off and so did
the bra between heated kisses. Nash bolted up from the bed and slammed shut the
door that the kids had left open, returning to Elliot before she barely had
time to miss him. As their lips collided in heated passion, Elliot stripped
Nash of his uniform shirt, which ended up in a heap on the floor.  His
undershirt was next, and their naked flesh came together in a rush of
excitement.

Nash had a magnificent chest,
broad and leanly muscular.  Elliot dragged her mouth across his nipples,
listening to him hiss with the wild pleasure of it. They couldn’t seem to get
enough of each other, kissing so ferociously that Elliot came away with a
bleeding mouth when Nash drove his teeth into her soft upper lip.  She pushed
him down on the bed, feasting on his beautiful chest, as her hands moved to
unfasten his belt buckle.

“Hello?” came a faint voice.
“Nash, where are you?”

Elliot froze, her big eyes coming
up to meet his. Nash stared at her, dazed to the point of incoherency, but he
managed to collect his wits.

“It’s Beau,” he whispered
huskily.

Elliot climbed off of him and
quickly went in search of her bra and shirt while Nash went to the bedroom door
and cracked it open.

“Up here,” he yelled back. “Stay
there. I’ll be right down.”

He turned around in time to see
Elliot pulling her shirt over her head. Their eyes met and, for a moment, no
one spoke. What they had experienced went beyond words and they both knew that,
somehow, their lives would be forever changed because of it.  Finally, Elliot
reached down and picked up his shirts.

“Here,” she whispered as she went
to him, handing him the undershirt first.

Nash took it in silence, pulling
it over his head and quickly pulling on his uniform shirt, buttoning it with
fast fingers. Elliot smoothed her ponytail, watching him tuck his shirt in,
noticing his significant arousal as it strained against his slacks. She was
genuinely disappointed that she hadn’t had the opportunity to experience it. 

When Nash finished tucking his
shirt in, he suddenly cupped her face between his two big hands and kissed her
deeply. Elliot turned herself over to the kiss completely, a willing victim to
his seeking mouth. The kiss was strong and full of emotion, so much so that
they were both caught up in the wild maelstrom of hormones and feeling.

“I love you,” he whispered.

And then he was gone,
disappearing from the bedroom and down the hall. Elliot simply stood there,
shocked to the bone, listening to the distant exchange between Nash and Beau
downstairs. 

Even as she stood there, she
couldn’t really grasp what he had just said…
I love you
… in the sweetest
whisper she could have ever imagined.  Could it possibly be true or was it the
heat of passion talking?

She wondered.  One thing was for
certain; she was pretty sure she was falling in love with him, too.

                                                                               ***

Elliot and Nash never had a
chance to be alone again that night.  Beau was around, and then Penelope and
Alec returned with ribs and groceries, so Elliot spent her time packing away
perishables into two cheap coolers that the kids had bought. But at least now
they had some groceries and the old house was starting to feel more like a
home. 

After the kids passed out from
sheer exhaustion and too much food, Elliot, Nash and Beau sat up until
midnight, talking quietly in the big double parlors about the restoration of
the house. Nash wouldn’t leave until the armed security patrol arrived, which
was just after midnight. One was a K-9 unit. 

Elliot stayed on the porch as
Nash and Beau talked to the three security guards and explained the situation.
Ken Havereau showed up a short time later and Nash posted the man at the
driveway with a wide view of the road.  Anyone crossing over the road to get on
to Elliot’s property would be spotted immediately.

As the security guards and the
deputy went to their posts, Nash faced Elliot on the porch. The only light was
from the bright-white bulb in the front parlor, barely illuminating beyond the
house.

Elliot smiled at him as he
approached and he returned the gesture.  She stood up on the porch while he
stood on the driveway, a few steps down, gazing up into her exquisite face.

“You’ll be fine tonight,” he told
her, his voice soft. “I’ll swing by first thing in the morning to check on you
before I go to work.”

Elliot nodded.  There was so much
emotion roiling in her chest that she was having difficulty focusing. She
couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence so she finally broke down in soft
laughter.

“I just can’t find the words to
express what this all means to me,” she replied, her eyes glittering.  “Or what
you mean to me. I’m just speechless with your thoughtfulness and generosity.”

He grinned, took the steps up to
the porch, and kissed her on the cheek.  “If I kiss you anywhere else, I’ll
never get out of here,” he whispered.

She met his gaze, his face so
close to hers. “It wouldn’t bother me but I’m not going to ask you to stay. Not
yet.”

He sighed. “I feel like… like I
belong here with you, like we belong together. I can’t explain it any better
than that. I don’t want to leave you but propriety says that I have to.  I want
to pick you up and carry you up the stairs into that torn-up bedroom and finish
what we started tonight.  I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Ellie, not
ever. You’re under my skin and I haven’t even known you that long.”

She could see how serious he
was.  “Did you mean what you said earlier when you left me in my bedroom?”

He knew exactly what she meant.
The very same thought had been weighing heavily on him since he said it, words
that just came out before he could stop them. But he knew that he didn’t regret
it in the least.

“Every word,” he leaned forward
and kissed her mouth sweetly. “I’ll see you in the morning. You have my phone
number if you need me.”

He turned and walked down the
steps, heading to his car across the dark gravel driveway. He paused as he got
into his car.

“Go inside and lock the door,” he
told her.

She waved at him and obeyed,
going inside and shutting the enormous front door.  She threw the old bolt,
locking it up tight.  Going into the big double parlor, she looked out of the
new glass window just in time to see Nash driving down the driveway.  Truth
was, she hadn’t wanted him to leave, either. She had wanted him to stay with
her, not because she was lustily hot for him, but because she just didn’t want
him to leave her. She didn’t want to be without him, either. The comfort the
man gave her, the pure joy, was indescribable.

Lighting a candle, she shut off
the lamp and threw the double parlors into utter darkness. It was creepy but
she was finding some comfort in the eerie.  This was her house and she was very
quickly becoming a part of it, and it a part of her.  Maybe it was because the
house was so entangled in Nash and his family, but for whatever the reason, she
felt very close to him here. 

Making her way down the central
hall to the great winding staircase, she could see flashlights through the
ballroom windows, patrolling her property, and it made her feel extremely
safe. 

Sleep came easily that night and
when she slept, it was with heated dreams of Nash.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next several days passed
quickly and without incident.  The army of contractors would begin every
morning, promptly at sunrise, and then end every day around four in the
afternoon. The scraping and hammering was Elliot’s morning alarm clock and she
barely had time to get up and go down to double parlors to start the coffee
maker in the only working outlet before Nash appeared.

 He was always there, promptly at
sunrise, bringing her and the kids a box of donuts, or bagels or egg
sandwiches. He’d already gone twice that week to the little restaurant that
overlooked the bayou and came back with scrambled eggs and cheese, enough to
make Alec and Penelope very happy people.  The kids were starting to get fat
and lazy with Nash catering to them.

He would stay with Elliot for
about an hour, sipping coffee and speaking about a wide variety of subjects as
the sun rose. Then he would collect his gear, kiss her if the kids weren’t
around, and go off to work.  Elliot thought it was just about as heavenly as it
could be because the more she got to know him, the more wonderful she thought
he was. 

More and more, they were settling
into an oddly domestic routine as the restoration of Purgatory went on around
them. It was the new life that Elliot had hoped for on a level she could have
never imagined.

On Wednesday night of that first
sweet and blissful week, Nash had taken Elliot to a Rotary Club mixer with him
so he could introduce her to the main players in the town. He took great pride
in introducing her to people he considered his friends, nice couples who were
very sweet and eager to know her, and of course Monty and his wife were there,
and Nash begrudgingly introduced her to the lascivious mayor and his ignorant
wife. 

Monty had done everything but
openly drool on her, so very pleased to meet the newest resident of their
town.  Nash had stood right by her side, stepping in between Elliot and Monty
when the eager mayor got to close.  

It had been a wonderful evening
and Elliot had had a wonderful time, but it was very clear to everyone at that
mixer that Nash and the new owner of Purgatory were an item.  After that night,
the gossip began to fly fast and hard.

Nash had heard bits and pieces of
it since the mixer and, truth be told, he didn’t much care. In fact, he was
glad.  He felt puffed up like a proud peacock, happier than he had ever been in
his life.  Even his deputies had started hearing the rumors and jokes and
good-natured jibs flew around the office. Someone even found a book-jacket
picture of Elliot online and blew it up into a poster, a gorgeous shot of
Elliot looking very sweet and very sexy.