But it didn’t. Work.

Jax walked into the inn’s kitchen with him. Jax got a very friendly kiss from Maddie. Sawyer got coffee. While Jax headed to the sunroom, Sawyer looked around the kitchen for signs of Chloe and found none.

“Looking for anything special?” Tara asked from her perch at the stove.

Sawyer glanced out the window. No Vespa.

“She’s not here,” Tara said dryly. “She’s been sneaking away for a few hours here and there, needing to regroup.” She paused. “It’s because she lets things build up inside of her. She tries to hide it, pretend nothing gets to her. But things get to her. People get to her.”

“Tara,” Maddie said quietly from the kitchen table.

“He gets to her,” Tara said to her sister, pointing at Sawyer with a wooden spatula.

“What’s wrong?” Sawyer asked. “What’s happened?”

Tara shook her head. “Nothing. At least nothing specific.”

“Any idea where she might be?”

Tara shook her head. “She said she goes somewhere that gives her peace and quiet, a place where she can think.”

At that, some of the tension left Sawyer’s shoulders. He had a decent idea where she might be.

“Sawyer?”

“Yeah?” Impatient to be gone, he looked back at Tara.

Her eyes were fierce and protective. “Don’t make me sorry I told you.” There was an unmistakable threat in her voice.

Normally that would irritate the hell out of him, but he kept his gaze level with hers and shook his head. “I won’t.”

As he walked out, he heard Maddie say to Tara, “Look at you, meddling like a mother hen.”

“She won’t thank me,” Tara said.

“Depends on what happens next,” Maddie said, which was the last thing Sawyer heard as he left the inn.

*

Sawyer drove through town, hoping he was right about Chloe’s location. Somewhere that gives her peace and quiet. Hell, if he thought about it too much, that could be anywhere. The mud springs. Lance’s house. Hang gliding…

He shuddered. Christ, he hoped she wasn’t doing anything like that, but when it came to Chloe, one never knew. Her idea of peace and quiet was decidedly left of center.

But her partner in crime, Lance, had been seen all over town with his new girlfriend, which hopefully meant they’d all been too busy to get into trouble.

So Sawyer headed home. In the middle of the night, with no traffic and no red lights, it took fifteen minutes to get through town and up the hill to his house. This morning, as the sun rose above the tall mountains cradling Lucky Harbor, bathing the town in a golden glow, he made it in seven.

He idled in his driveway, staring at the Vespa parked there. Not wanting to examine the odd feeling in his chest, the one that felt suspiciously like relief and also something more, he got out. He didn’t go inside, but walked around the side of the house. He flicked a glance at the outdoor shower, and as it had every other time since he’d been in there with Chloe, his dick twitched at the memory of her pale skin gleaming, water running in rivers down her curves…

He moved to the cliff and took the stairs to the beach. The sun had risen a little more, casting the overhang in black shadow, the rocks indistinguishable from one another.

At the bottom of the stairs, he kicked off his boots and socks and turned to face the cliffs. The sun was in his eyes, blinding him to anything but the outline of the granite. The beach was utterly empty and completely isolated, especially at this time of year. There was a salty breeze but the waves were subdued, soft and quiet. A lullaby, gently rolling against the rocky sand. A bird squawked. Its mate squawked back.

But there was no sight of a petite, redheaded, wild beauty named Chloe.

When he saw the single-track of small, feminine footprints, he sucked in a breath of pure relief. “Gotcha,” he murmured, and followed the prints up the beach and around a large outcropping of rock, heading for the cliff.

Where they vanished at the face of the rock.

If it hadn’t been for the footsteps, he’d have missed her entirely. Because even tilting his head back as far as he could, she was invisible to him. But he knew she was up there.

He could feel her.

Shaking his head at himself—he could feel her?—he began to climb, telling himself that this would be a hands-off talk.

Halfway up, he levered himself over a large, flat rock that jutted out and found her.

Silent, gaze hooded, arms clasped around her knees, her lovely face was in profile but still projecting a loneliness and darkness that called to him.

Because it matched his own.

He crouched in front of her. “Hey.”

Chloe turned her head and studied him, from his bare, sandy feet, to his wrinkled uniform, and finally his face. Whatever she saw there had a small smile curving her mouth. “Long night, Sheriff?”

“Jax asked me the same thing.”

“It’s because you look like shit.”

“Yeah, he said that, too.”

She nodded and scooted over, a wordless invitation to join her. He crawled in next to her and mirrored her pose.

They watched the waves for a few minutes in easy, companionable silence. He’d gotten the feeling from Tara that Chloe had been upset, but he wasn’t getting that vibe from her at all.

No, just that same sense of needing that vague something that he felt deep in his own gut. “Are you all right?”

“Always.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Same question back atcha, Sawyer.”

She didn’t often use his given name. He liked the sound of it coming from her lips way more than he should. “Your sisters are worried.”

She blew out a sigh and sank farther back against the rock. “They shouldn’t be.”

“Want me to take you home?”

“Are you asking, or planning on cuffing me and dragging me back?”

“If I cuff you,” he said, “the inn is the last place you’ll be headed.”

She laughed softly. “You’re such a tease. You climb up here in uniform often?”

“Almost never.”

She looked at him, that damn concern in her eyes again. “You really do look beat.”

“I am.” He unbuckled his utility belt and set it on a rock.

“Don’t stop there,” she said.

“Right, and end up on Facebook.”

Chloe laughed. “Lucille wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Only because she knows I’d arrest her.”

“Sure you would.” Her smile faded, replaced by a thoughtful frown. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“Why what?”

“Lucille loves to shout to the world what you do as Sheriff Thompson, but the private life of Sawyer seems to be off-limits. She never outs you about anything.”

“Nothing to tell. I’m always on the job.”

“No, seriously. Remember that day you changed her tire? She was telling me all about your younger years, then totally clammed up when she got to your teens.”

No, he wasn’t tabloid material anymore, thank God. And he owed a big thanks to Lucille for that. “I’m too tired to have that conversation with you right now.” Or ever.

“So…you’re off duty.”

“Finally, yes.”

“Good.” She rose to her knees at his side and tugged at his shirt, indicating she wanted him to lose it.

He shouldn’t, but he must have been even farther gone than he’d thought, because he peeled out of his Kevlar vest, his uniform shirt, then the T-shirt he wore beneath, setting everything on top of his growing pile.

She ran her gaze over his chest with frank appreciation. Then he shivered, realizing he hadn’t really considered the weather. It was forty-five degrees max, but Chloe was giving him a go-on gesture with her hand.

“All I have left is my pants,” he said.

“Yes, please.”

“It’s cold, Chloe.”

She tilted her head. “Are you worried about shrinkage?”

Well, he was now.

“I’ve already seen the goods, remember? Trust me, Sheriff, you have nothing to worry about.”

Sawyer laughed in spite of himself, then went still when she straddled him. Before he could so much as blink, she’d bent and kissed his collarbone. Then a pec. She touched her tongue to his skin, and he shivered again. Not from the cold. “Chloe.” That was all he managed to get out. His hands were on her hips, gripping her tight as she shifted over an inch and licked his nipple. He sucked in a breath.

“It looked cold,” she whispered and blew a warm breath over his damp skin.

He shuddered, the cold air the last thing on his mind now, as she rocked slowly over the obvious bulge behind his zipper.

“I thought I wanted to be alone,” she said, grinding on him until his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

“I know,” he managed, tipping her face up to meet his gaze. “But I didn’t want you to be.”

She smiled. “I like that about you. You listen to everyone, but then come to your own conclusions and do whatever the hell you want.”

“If you knew what I wanted to do right now, you’d probably be shoving me off this bluff.”

“Don’t count on it.” She rose a little and covered his mouth with hers.

The kiss rocked his socks off. Or it would have, if he’d been wearing any. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. She was definitely no longer feeling lonely or sad, or anything negative at all. Her eyes were soft and…dreamy.

Dreamy was troubling, because it was more than just lust. Dreamy meant things he couldn’t deliver, such as his own emotions. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel things for her. He could, and did.

God, he did.

He just had no idea what to do with them. “Chloe—”

“I was thinking about your shower,” she said, nuzzling her face against his jaw. “I was sort of hoping to find you there.”

“We never did finish what we started that day.”

Chloe smiled against him. “Maybe ‘we’ didn’t finish, but I sure did.”

He laughed. So did she. And then somehow they were kissing again. “Hold on,” he said, regretfully pulling back. “We can’t.”

“Sorry. That word doesn’t compute.”

He let out another low laugh and tightened his grip on her when she nipped at his throat. “I’m not risking you having another post-orgasm asthma attack while we’re way up here on the rocks,” he murmured, groaning when she rocked the hottest part of her over the hardest part of him.

“I have a better idea,” she whispered.

Oh, good. One of them could still think. “What?”

She pulled her inhaler from her back pocket and waved it at him. Leaning over him, she lightly kissed first one corner of his mouth, then the other. “And I want you,” she whispered, her mouth brushing his with each word. “So much. Please? Please, Sawyer…”

This was her idea? To beg? Because first, that really worked for him. And second…hell. He couldn’t remember.

Chapter 19

“The severity of the itch is inversely proportional

to the ability to reach it.”

Chloe Traeger

Chloe lost herself in Sawyer’s embrace. It wasn’t a surprise, the man could kiss like nobody’s business. She was floating on waves of pleasure and desire when he pulled back. “Not here,” he said again, putting his gear back on to climb down. “Not on a sandy rock in fifty-degree weather.”

The weather had actually improved. Everything was wet and dewy from the rain, and the sky hung low like a covering tarp, but the sun had begun to peek through. She inhaled the salty air coming off the water and the scents of spruce and pine from the woods. Glorious. So was the man trying to give her the bum’s rush down the hill. “We could just free the essentials,” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, but it’s my essentials I’m worried about.” He was following her down, climbing with the agility of someone much lighter and smaller than his size. “I don’t want anything freezing off.”

She laughed. “It’s not cold enough.”

“Says the woman who doesn’t have a part to freeze off.”

“And here I thought you were so tough.”

“An illusion.” He hopped to the sand and then, because apparently she wasn’t moving fast enough for him, snatched her off the rock himself for one more bone-melting kiss. Then he had her by the hand and was pushing her toward the stairs.

Apparently, they were in a hurry. She was on board with that and picked up the pace. But that combined with her undeniable excitement worked against her because after a few steps, she felt her chest tighten. Goddammit. “Sawyer—”

He took one look at her, swore, then lifted her into his arms and took the stairs as if she weighed nothing at all.

Laughing breathlessly, she said, “Don’t wear yourself out. I have plans for you.”

“You just concentrate on breathing,” he said, expression dialed into fiercely intent male. “Inhaler?”

“Got it.” She pulled it from her pocket and used it as he carried her through his backyard and past the shower.

“Oh,” she said, looking longingly at the showerhead. “But—”

“Bed,” he said firmly.

She wriggled her gritty toes. “I’m sandy.”

“You’re going to be hot and bothered in a minute,” he promised and shouldered open his back door.

She was already hot and bothered, and a shiver of anticipation racked her as Sawyer carried her through the house so fast that she could barely see. “Hey,” she said. “You painted some more—”