to the forest and Fluffy disappears, most of them wouldn’t report it to the police. The cops aren’t going to arrest Yogi.”
“As Yogi is smarter than the average bear, he’d probably be above stealing then eating Fluffy, but I take your meaning.”
Owen smiled. Even before he’d fallen in love with her, he’d liked her so damn much. He still did.
Be honest, dumbass.
He still loved her. He always would.
Becca pulled out her cell phone, looked at the display, cursed, and put it back in the pocket of her track pants. “I need to call Chief Deb.”
“Chiefdub?”
“Deb. Debbie Waldentrout is the police chief now.”
“Debbie Waldentrout is three feet tall.” The idea of her in a police chief’s uniform was somewhat cartoonish.
“Is not.” Becca headed for the door.
As she went past, Owen took her elbow and she stilled. He should have let her go, especially when she shivered. Instead he rubbed his thumb over her ulna, and she shivered some more. Because he was sitting on the edge of the couch and she was standing, his gaze was level with her chest, which rose and fell so quickly he was captivated.
That scent of lemons overshadowed the scent of death, and Owen breathed in, out, and in again. From the moment he’d met her, she’d cleansed him, healed him, elevated him. He’d become so much more while he’d been with her. He’d become so much more because of her. She had loved him. She had saved him. He’d always wanted to tell her that, but he’d never been quite sure how.
What he saw in her gaze made Owen tighten his fingers—to push her away, or pull her closer. He never knew, because she leaned over—so quick he had time to do nothing but say her name. A whisper. A plea. A prayer. And then she was kissing him; he was kissing her.
The years fell away. It was their first kiss. Their last.
That first one had been tentative—soft, a little afraid, yet so full of hope. The last had been shocked, a little tearful, and full of despair. This one tasted of both. How strange. What did she hope for? What did she fear? Why did she despair?
Questions for another time, right now he delved, taking her mouth, tasting her teeth, wishing, hoping, praying for more, even though he knew it could never be. For so many reasons …
Suddenly she was gone. His mouth followed hers in retreat, seeking those lips he still dreamed of. His arms reached; his empty fingers closed on nothing. He started to stand. The pain sent him right back.
His breath hissed in. Reggie yipped and rushed over, shoving his precious ball into Owen’s hand, sharing what always made him feel better. Owen put the toy into his pocket, then pushed his fingers into Reggie’s fur to keep them from doing what they shouldn’t.
Rubbing his leg. Yanking her back. Making a fist and punching a wall.
“I don’t know why I did that,” she said. “It’s just—” She waved a hand toward the table, and he suddenly remembered what he had completely forgotten.
The travesty in his living room.
How could he have kissed her and dreamed of doing so much more, with that only a few feet away? Because, for him, a room that contained Becca Carstairs was devoid of anything else worth noticing.
“You always made everything better,” she blurted to the wall and not to him. “At least until—” Her breath rushed out.
“Until I made everything worse.”
After a few seconds of silence, during which Reggie glanced back and forth between the two of them, brow wrinkled, mouth open, she straightened. “I’m going up on the ridge to see if I can get a signal.”
The ridge lay between this house and her parents’ farm and was the highest point for miles around.
“Try the porch first.” Owen jabbed his thumb toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms on the second level. The largest, his mother’s, had a flat, porchlike area that extended over the garage. The trees had been shorn away from the utility poles more than once in the past ten years and created a tiny avenue to the sky. “Higher might help.”
She started for the stairs. “If I can’t get through I’ll have to head to my folks’ and use their landline.”
He wanted to say he’d go with her, but the idea of climbing up one side of the ridge and down the other made his leg pulse.