it. Standing in the twilight, she had her hands jammed in the front pockets of those cut-short overalls. Her endless legs flowed from ragged threads to sandals with thick soles that looked fashioned from old snow tires. Her stance was belligerent. Her shoulders were squared.
Her harlot's mouth was sulky.
He went hard.
She shifted, affording him a quick peekaboo glimpse of one breast beneath her overall bib. Though now covered with T-shirt cotton instead of half bared by her madam's dress, he remembered exactly how their slight mounds had been pushed up and forward earlier that afternoon. Years ago one of Dylan's frat brothers had evangelized that a woman's breasts need be only large enough to fill a champagne glass or a man's mouth. Well, hallelujah. For the first time, Dylan could call himself a true believer.
Slowly straightening, he captured her gaze with his so she wouldn't have a chance to notice the telltale bulge in his jeans. He couldn't afford the sign of weakness.
She shuffled her feet restlessly against the sidewalk, and Tinkerbell the cat beelined for her legs, twining itself against her long, smooth calves.
Dylan's gaze followed its movements. "Lucky cat," he said.
"What?" she asked, her eyes widening.
He slanted another look at her drool-worthy legs. "Lucky cat."
This time Kitty twitched.
Interesting. Dylan kept his smile to himself. His job had prepared him to observe, deduce, to find which buttons to push when. It seemed that sexual talk, even the mildest observation, made Kitty nervous. Good.
He moved closer to her. She moved back, Tinkerbell leaping to keep up with her.
"Were you looking for me?" Dylan asked.
A light breath of ripe roses drifted through the air. "I ... I wanted to talk you out of the sheriff thing." A flush bloomed on her skin.
"Why would you want to talk me out of it?" He was quite willing to needle her. "You need a sheriff."
She bent to fondle the cat's ears, her hair in that improbable knot sliding over one shoulder. She looked young and uncertain and he thought of that crossword puzzle again and the blank squares he couldn't fill.
Kitty straightened, then started moving backward down the street to leave the cat and him behind. "You don't want to be sheriff," she said.
He caught up with her. "How do you know that?"
"You're on vacation." She turned around and continued walking. "I'm sure you want to be with your father and get reacquainted with old friends."
He winced, thinking of that afternoon and how the familiar, smiling faces had clawed at his conscience.
"You'll want to talk over old times."
God. That was worse. Thinking about the past nearly suffocated him. Talking about it - he forced the idea away. "What about you and me, Kitty?" he said, an edge to his voice. "We have old times to hash over, don't we?"
Her footsteps quickened. "Not ... not really."
He lengthened his stride to keep up with her. "There was was that night - "
"I don't want to talk about that night." Even though she was walking, he could almost see her squirm.
"But - "
"I said, I don't want to talk about it." She made that squirmy movement again.
He frowned, baffled. "But - "
"No."
His frown deepened. "Kitty." He stopped, putting his hand on her arm to halt her.
That sexual sting pierced his palm like a dart and he saw her shudder with a similar response. "Hell, Kitty..." Maybe they should talk about this, address the obvious, unexpected chemistry. He turned her his way, then froze as he noticed the sight over her shoulder, directly across the street.
The cemetery. He dropped Kitty's arm and his heart constricted, shriveling into a small, hard stone inside his chest. As was common for many small towns, even though Hot Water's graveyard had originally been situated on the outskirts, the town had grown toward it. Established by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a brotherhood made popular in Gold Rush times, the cemetery was operated by the still-thriving fraternal organization. In an ironic twist, the Odd Fellows had deeded the adjacent land for a city park. Ever practical, Hot Water had accepted the gift with gratitude, and despite its proximity to the dead, the park had become the center of every town celebration since.
But now, in the dinnertime almost-dark, the park was deserted. No children played on the swings; no oldsters took a stroll under the shade of the giant oaks. The only ones around to enjoy the summer night were in the cemetery, buried six feet belowground.