Sheriff in Her Stocking (2 page)

Her stomach
growled.

He smiled and
raised one brow. “Hungry?”

Oh, she was
hungry all right. “A little. It’s just that it smells like food in here.”

He moved to the driver’s
side, checked his rearview mirror and pulled the truck onto the snow covered
highway. “I delivered some food to a lady who lives outside of town. You were
lucky I happened to come along.”

She was
surprised. “You deliver food too?”

“Avery’s a small
town.”  He turned off the CD player. “The citizens depend on me for a lot
of things in addition to upholding the law.” 

“Does that
include rescuing stranded women during snow storms?”

He chuckled and
his laughter washed through her down to her toes. Did he have a sense of humor
in bed?  She shook herself inwardly. Why would she think such a
thing? 

“Actually,
you’re my first. Mostly it’s traffic complaints, domestic disturbances, drunks
or trouble with some of the local teenagers.”

There was no way
she could pursue this man. As soon as the storm cleared, she was moving on.
Good thing too. Her family probably wouldn’t like it if she became involved
with a man like him. He was the dark, sultry Latin type. Even though she wasn’t
particularly close to her parents, she was aware of what they expected of her
and had never bucked their wishes or opinions. She glanced at him out of the
corner of her eye and let her gaze travel from the top of his head to the tip
of his toes. Well...it couldn’t hurt to dream.

* * * * *

A few minutes
later, he maneuvered the truck through the town. Avery appeared picture perfect
covered in a thick blanket of snow. Christmas wreaths strung with twinkle
lights swung in the wind where they hung on the light posts. The streets were
empty, the stores locked up tight.

Rick pulled the
truck into a space in front of a building and cut the engine. Delaney blinked
when she saw the sign on the door. “Why are we stopping here?”

He turned and
looked at her. Beams from a street light flowed in and illuminated his head in
a halo so she couldn’t see his features clearly. “The bed and breakfast is full
with the Lawson family in town for the holidays visiting their grandparents.
The best I can offer you is a jail cell.”

Startled by his
suggestion, her mouth popped open. “A jail cell?”

He shrugged.
“It’s clean. There’s even a bathroom with a shower at the end of the
hall.”  He made it sound like a hotel. “Until the storm passes...”

She’d never even
been inside a jail, now she was going to have to spend the night in a cell or
perhaps two nights or more. What choice did she have?  “I’ll take it.”

He swung his
office door open, flipped a switch and the space flooded with light. Delaney
stepped inside and looked around. The room was small with a wood floor and
walls painted a stark white. A file cabinet occupied the back wall. An oak desk
of average size sat under a small window and contained a phone and a rolodex
with file folders neatly stacked in the center. A calendar, advertising
Griffin’s Hardware store, hung over the file cabinet.

Rick closed the
door at her back, stepped around her with her suitcase in one hand and headed
toward a door in the back that led to a darkened hallway. “Cell’s through here.
We only have one.”  His voice was polite and matter-of-fact. “It’s not
used very often except by the occasional drunk.”

She thought of
an old television show she’d seen recently. “Like Otis.”

He stopped and
looked at her over his shoulder. “Otis?”

“From the Andy
Griffith show.”

“Not
quite.”  He walked through the door and flipped another switch. An
overhead light dispelled the darkness. “Most drunks I lock up are belligerent.
They aren’t happy drunks like Otis.”  He walked over to the jail cell,
grasped the door and swung it open. There was a simple lock on the door, no
fancy electronics for security. He set her suitcase inside the cell and turned.
“You’ll be safe here.”  He smiled at her again and she felt the inevitable
melt down. “No one’s ever broken into the sheriff’s office not even to spring a
prisoner.” 

There was a cot
against the wall with white sheets, a pillow and a coarse blanket folded neatly
on one end. A sink and toilet sat against one wall. No rocking chair with
doilies Aunt Bee had made, no pictures on the walls, no side table with a lamp
and books to read. She looked up at the tiny window covered with iron bars
situated high up the wall over the cot. No escape.

The cell
contained not the slightest sign of Christmas not even a sprig of holly.
Delaney thought about the cozy apartment she’d left behind in Seattle, the same
apartment where she’d plan to share Christmas with her boyfriend. She’d left
town hoping to start a new chapter in her life in New York City. Only she never
bargained on a jail cell in small town America no matter how temporary. She
forced a smile. “Home sweet home.”

* * * * *

Rick climbed
into the cab of his truck and slammed the door. He huffed out a breath.
“Shit.”  He leaned his head back and stared at the falling snow through
the windscreen. He was headed toward home sweet home not her. He’d told her the
cell was the best he could do, but that was a damn lie. He had a perfectly
comfortable fold out sofa in the den at his house that any one of his family
members used when they came to visit. So why hadn’t he invited her to come home
with him?  The answer was simple.

He didn’t trust
himself to keep his hands off her.

He smiled.
Discovering her hand on his crotch after they’d tumbled into the snow was a
surprise and a delight. Especially when her fingers closed around him right
before she pulled her hand away. Both those actions made him hard in an
instant. Besides, there was something about her, the way she talked and moved,
the expressions he watched flicker in her cobalt eyes. She was sexy as all hell
and he didn’t have a clue why. She wasn’t even his type. He usually went for
slim brunettes, women who worked out, watched what they ate. But Delaney Moore,
with her fair complexion and silvery blonde hair was far from his normal kind
of woman. She had sensuous curves and she traveled with an open bag of
chocolate chip cookies in her car. No woman he’d ever dated did that.

Why was he so
attracted to her?  Her silky voice had a slight purr that did strange
things to his insides and made him feel as though he’d been waiting to hear her
voice his entire life. The thought scared him senseless. When she’d first
spoken, the sound of her voice touched a need deep inside him, a need he
couldn’t quite identify, a need he refused to shine a light on. Something his
mother said to him right before he moved from Chicago to Avery drifted through
his mind.
When you meet the right woman, everything about
her will hit you like a brick. You’ll wonder where she’s been all your life.
Just like when I met your father.

He shook his head.
Not him. No way. Besides, he’d been dating Lenore Shaw, the owner of the local
bed and breakfast. The brunette kept herself in shape. She’d also brought him
food when he first moved to Avery and even offered him free room and board in
the B&B until he could get settled. They’d had a date last night and here
he was thinking about another woman, a virtual stranger. He exhaled a heavy
breath. But he and Lenore had never made any kind of verbal or emotional
commitment not to see other people. They had only been out together a few
times. He found her attractive and had considered going to bed with her, but he
was afraid she might take it as some kind of commitment.

Why did cuddling
up with Delaney Moore hold so much appeal?  Damned if he knew. An image of
Delaney’s pale face and wide blue eyes flashed into his mind. She never said
she was afraid to stay in the jail, but she looked scared out of her wits. Was
it because of the jail, the car accident she’d been in earlier or a combination
of the two?  Why the hell did it bother him so much to head home to a warm
house and bed leaving her to cozy up on a jail cell cot?  He didn’t even
know the woman.

“Damn it.” Rick
heaved a deep sigh, opened the driver’s door and climbed out into the snow
filled night.

When he stepped
into the lighted hallway just off his office, he heard Delaney mutter a curse.
He looked down at the hallway floor. Wet footprints and small puddles of water
led in the direction of the jail cell. He heard the shower running. Rick looked
toward the cell that Delaney occupied and nearly swallowed his tongue. She
stood facing the cell door with one hand grasping a bar and the other gripping
a towel that was wrapped around her body. She pulled on the bar of the cell
door, pressed her mouth into a firm line and softly cursed again.

She’d locked
herself in. Unable to help himself, Rick grinned as a lusty thought drifted
through his mind. He’d like to see her locked up but only as a slave to his
ardor, a woman willing to let him reign over her body.

Water dripped
from her hair. Light glistened off the water droplets on the slopes of her
milky, white breasts showing above the towel. The bottom of the towel only
reached the extreme top of her thighs. Her fanny and the sweet delight lying
between her legs were barely covered. He watched in rapt fascination as water
trickled down the inside of her thighs much as her own womanly honey would flow
for him if he slipped his hand beneath that towel and caressed her. For a
moment, he stood glued to the floor as a sexy scenario played like a wet dream
through his mind.

Slowly, she
lifted her head. Her blue gaze locked onto his and glowed with an inner desire
that beckoned him to her side. Her lips parted on a sigh, her light pink tongue
licked her upper lip making it glimmer. He grew hard, his penis nudging his
pants needing to be free of restraint and penetrate her sensuous body. He
walked toward her cell where she stood by the door. The hallway light streamed
over her, the water droplets on her skin tempting him to rub his tongue over
every inch of her. As he neared the door, she let go of the bar on the jail
cell door. He took the cell key from his pocket, slipped it into the lock in
much the same way he wanted to slip inside her. He pushed and the door banged
against the cell’s bars the sound reverberating through his body like the want
for her filling his blood. They looked at each other while the sexual
attraction arced like electricity between them. He stepped forward until they
were barely an inch apart. Raising one hand he grasped the edge of the towel in
his fist and pulled it roughly from her body.

She gasped, but
her eyes filled with hunger. She dropped her arms to her sides and stared at
him. He reached out and held one of her breasts in his palm rubbing his thumb
over the nipple until it hardened. He laid his other hand on the nest of blonde
curls between her thighs and nudged her back until her legs met with the edge
of the cot. He leaned down, put one arm behind her knees, the other around her
waist. He picked her up and laid her onto the cot. After removing the handcuffs
from his back pocket, he gently positioned her hands above her head and
fastened the cuffs around her wrists. She lay there like a temptress with a
sexy smile on her lips. Her eyes were warm, inviting him to touch her, take
her, and pursue sexual dominion over every inch of her delectable body.

 She
shifted on the cot, pushing her chest forward giving him a good, long look at
her breasts. Then she moved her hips rubbing her fanny into the cot. He braced
his hands on either side of her upper body, leaned over and took one of her
nipples into his mouth laving it with his tongue. A little whimper of pleasure
escaped her throat, the sound zipping like a hot current to settle between his
legs almost making him come. Straddling her on the cot, he spread her
beautiful, ivory thighs wide until he could see the soft folds of her womanhood
and her plump aroused clit. Lowering his head, he opened his mouth and--

 “Thank
God!”

The sound of
Delaney’s voice startled Rick from his libidinous thoughts.

“I came back to
the cell because I’d forgotten my shampoo and accidentally shut the
door.”  A blush burned over her neck and cheeks. “You must think I’m an
idiot.”  Her voice was soft with embarrassment.

Rick glanced
down at the hard-on tenting his slacks, pulled the sides of his jacket together
and hoped she didn’t notice. He walked to the cell and opened the door. Seeing
the upper slopes of her breasts gleaming with water, he had a sudden almost
irresistible urge to lick the water droplets from her skin as he’d done in his
daydream. “No, it could happen to anybody.” 

She stepped
beside him. The smell of soap and her warm, wet feminine skin assailed him. He
skimmed his gaze over her face washed free of makeup, her lips naked and full
smiling up at him and nearly pounced.

“Why did you
come back anyway?  Did you forget something?”  She brushed a strand
of damp hair away from her cheek.

The action made
the towel gap open giving him an even better view of her breasts. Desire
streaked to his groin. He swallowed against the exquisite pain. “Not exactly. I
just thought it wasn’t such a great idea for you to spend the night here...in a
jail cell...alone when I have a perfectly comfortable fold out sofa bed at my
house.”  He motioned in the direction of the bathroom at the end of the
hall. He could hear the shower running. “I’ll be glad to wait while you finish
your shower and get dressed. What do you say?”

She smiled,
glanced at the cell then back at him. “Thank you for your offer. That’s really
nice of you, but I think I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure?”

Delaney nodded.

“Okay.”  He
held out the keys to the cell. “Just in case.”

She laughed and
reached for them. “Thanks.”

Her fingers
brushed over his. God, her skin felt soft. “Goodnight.”