Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology Read online

  But he couldn’t stop listening.

  “Sure thing, baby girl. What’s up, Ryan?”

  The other man grunted something about a weekend road trip for his brother Finn’s wedding. Rafe had heard a bit about it the week before at poker night. A four-hour drive south to a tiny town called Wardham.

  Rafe hadn’t asked too much about the trip because after his divorce, poker, hockey and work were the only safe subjects between him and Ryan. The Howards had been the only real couple friends he and Liv had, and while he and Ryan were still friendly, Lynn had taken Liv’s side in the divorce in a big way. Which he didn’t care about—most of the time, he was on Liv’s side in this whole mess. She’d deserved more than he’d given her. But she hadn’t given him a chance to make it right.

  If you could have. Maybe not. But he’d deserved a fucking chance.

  At the end of the day, that’s why he’d filed for divorce. If she didn’t want him, he wasn’t going to beg. He’d held on to the last scraps of his dignity and moved out. He hadn’t gone far—obviously—but he’d given her what she wanted.

  Even though it killed him. Not for the first time, he wondered if he’d made a mistake asking her if she wanted a divorce—offering her that out he hadn’t wanted her to take. He never expected her to say yes. That had gutted him.

  He slid into the booth with a sigh.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” Natalie said nervously. “Maybe you should have taken me to your friend’s place last night instead.”

  And interrupt whatever fun Matt was having with her friend? Rafe wasn’t going to force his own celibacy on others. “It’s fine.”

  “Clearly.” She toyed with her spoon, flipping it back and forth on the table. He wanted to take it away from her. Wanted her to drink her coffee and wait for her food and not stare at him like he’d hurt her feelings and she was hoping he’d suddenly see that and make it all better.

  He had no clue how to do that. Not for his wife, not for this stranger wearing his shirt. Definitely not for his mother, who hadn’t really spoken to him in two years. “Listen, Natalie, if I lead you on…”

  “You kissed me and invited me back to your place.”

  “Because you were stranded. It’s not you, it’s me. You’re gorgeous. I’m just not available.”

  “Are you gay?”

  He thought about saying yes, but Liv chose that moment to deliver their plates and he didn’t want her to hear any of their conversation. Genius move, coming here. Instead of answering, he busied himself with salt and pepper and ketchup. By the time he looked up she was eating. Just as well.

  Matt finally texted and confirmed he could drive the girls to their car and wait for a tow truck with them—and even better news, they were en route. Without a word, Rafe slid his phone across the Formica tabletop so Natalie could read it. Relief flitted across her face. He didn’t wait for Liv to bring them a bill. Their breakfast would be exactly twice his usual. He left three times as much on the table and escorted his sort-of-but-not-really date out to the parking lot just as Matt roared up in his bright blue F-150.

  Natalie hesitated when her friend opened the passenger door and gestured for her to get in. “About your shirt…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Maybe if they have another date, I can send it back with her.”

  Matt Foster rarely hooked up with the same woman more than once. He preferred to leave them with a happy smile after the first—and only—go round, before any attachment could form. The man managed to stay on this side of having a player reputation, and no doubt the next time he saw Natalie’s friend, she’d squeal and give him a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. But that would be it for them. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  * * *

  — —

  * * *

  Rafe scuffed his boot in the hard pack dirt at the bottom of the diner steps. He’d paid. His guest was gone. He had no reason not to get in his own truck and head home for some much needed sleep.

  He definitely had no explanation for jogging up the steps and stepping inside. Liv hadn’t cleared his dishes yet, even though the place was now empty. Instead, she was tidying every other part of the space. Squaring off chairs around the tables in the middle of the room. Refilling napkins.

  She reached over the counter for her damp rag, and he let himself have his fill of staring at her nipped-in waist and the flare of her hips. The memory of cupping her bottom as she slowly rode him in the middle of the night was bittersweet—one he never wanted to forget, and had desperately needed to get over.

  His dick had other thoughts. Like closing the gap between them and pressing up against her, his front to her back. Hugging and kissing and making it all right.

  But there was no magical cure for mismatched love. And anything less than that would just be a variation on disrespecting her. It was all that had held him back from suggesting something casual over the last twenty-four months. She deserved more than a furtive roll in the hay with her ex.

  So instead of groping her or begging for sexual scraps, he forced himself to saunter to his table, grab his mug, and head for the coffee pot.

  She knew he was there. She’d glanced at him in the mirrored panels over the pass-through. “Your girlfriend get off okay?”

  He poured the hot, black liquid into his cup, grateful for the furious sloshing noise it provided. “I told you,” he drawled slowly. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “I’m always your business.” In his chest, his heart thumped a little harder at the way her spine straightened when he said that. “I was Matt’s wingman last night and her car wouldn’t start at the end of the night. It was just easier to let her stay at my place.”

  “Let me put this another way,” she said coldly, her back still to him. “I don’t want to know.”

  “I slept on the couch.” The words grated out of him, and he knew it probably sounded like he resented having to explain himself. Except he didn’t. He’d come back inside to make sure she knew what had really happened. If he was gruff, that was more due to not knowing how the explanation would land. Doubt that it would be received as he hoped.

  She whirled on him, eyes blazing and cheeks pink. “Do you think that makes you some sort of hero, Rafe? We’re divorced. You’re supposed to move on and date other people.”

  “I’m not supposed to do it in front of you.”

  She laughed, a sad, empty sound. “Hard to avoid that in a town of six hundred people.”

  “We were in Lion’s Head, actually.”

  She held up her hand. “Still don’t want to know.”

  He took a sip of coffee. All the things he wanted to say froze in his throat. Give me a second chance. You look tired and gorgeous at the same time. Are you dating anyone?

  “I’m glad you’re moving on,” she said, her voice softening. “It’s been…like time has frozen for us. And we’re too young for that. I just don’t want to see it.”

  He took a final swig of coffee and glared at her across the diner. Then he rinsed his cup in the sink and placed it in the dirty dishes bin before prowling around the counter and getting close enough to see the whites of her eyes as she lifted her brow in surprise.

  “I’m not moving on.” He matched her slow, quiet tone. They’d done enough yelling, him and Liv. He reached out and put his hands on her hips. She felt different, like maybe she’d lost some weight there. “Are you eating enough?”

  “What?” She pushed hard against his chest, but he wasn’t going to be moved. “Rafe, give me some space.”

  “Give me a minute, then I’ll back off. Give me a minute to show you just how much I haven’t moved on, Liv.”

  Her breath caught in her throat and a tear started to form in the corner of her eye. Damn.

  “No, baby, please don’t cry.” His voice cracked and he didn’t care. He hauled her tight against him and buried his face in her hair. Still the same shampoo.

  “We
have to stop doing this,” she said into his shirt with a hiccup.

  I’m never going to stop. I’m never going to let you go. “I can’t, baby. I lo—“

  “No.” She struggled again and he eased his grip to give her some space. “No. You can’t say that.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed, then waved her hands between their bodies. “You need to stop coming in here. Alone. With people. Mac’s is now off-limits to you.”

  Chapter 2

  HIS jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. “You don’t want me here?”

  Oh, hell. Why did he have to ask that exact question? She didn’t want to lie. “I don’t think it’s healthy for you to come in here multiple times a week. You should buy some groceries.”

  “That’s not an answer to my question, baby.”

  “I’m not your baby.” She hated the waver in her voice. She totally was and always would be. But it hadn’t been enough. “I need to get back to work.”

  He looked around and then back at her with a now amused look on his face. “Yeah?” He lifted his voice. “Hey, Frank, can Liv take a break?”

  A muffled yes sounded from the back of the kitchen and she rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to—”

  “Oh, shut up.” He snagged her hand and pulled her outside. She hated how willingly she trotted along behind him.

  The diner sat on a large gravel lot on the edge of town, one block in from the county road that ran north up the peninsula. Between the diner and the county road was a country block of nothing but trees and snowmobile trails, and it was into this wooded area that Rafe headed.

  A cool wind rustled the leaves overhead—just starting to turn colours—and she shivered. He unzipped his hoodie and handed it over but she shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered and wrapped it around her. She reluctantly shoved her arms in the sleeves and he glowered at her as he reached for the zipper. The sweatshirt was way too big—he had a solid foot on her—and as he ducked low enough to grab the lower hem, their cheeks touched.

  Damn double damn. Somehow this was totally different than the hug inside the dinner. His breath hot against her ear, the pounding of her heart in her chest. He froze, bent over her like that, and she opened her mouth to tell him to back up but nothing came out.

  Ever so slowly, he dropped the zipper parts and slid his hands inside the warm fleece instead. He found her waist and tugged gently at her t-shirt, freeing it from the waistband of her jeans. He breathed her name against her skin, and she froze. Don’t say anything else. Don’t stop touching me but let’s not talk. Let’s pretend for a minute.

  As if he understood, he pressed his mouth against her neck and sucked gently at her pulse point at the same time as he found bare skin under her shirt. With a groan, he lifted her up and pressed her gently against a tree, notching one of his super awesome thighs between her legs and under her butt. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and tipped her head back, letting him feast on her skin. This was a terrible idea. She was definitely going to regret muddying these waters.

  Two years and they hadn’t so much as touched hands. Now two embraces in one day. At this rate she was going to let him fuck her in a forest.

  But he didn’t move his hands higher or lower. He stroked one thumb back and forth across the bottom of her rib cage, but the rest of him was perfectly restrained. Except for the part where she was wrapped around him and his mouth was wet and hot on her neck, this was just a hug.

  A completely naughty, nipple-tightening hug.

  And then he shifted his pelvis and she felt his erection beneath her, and it was most definitely not just a hug. They were ten seconds away from dry-humping. And she couldn’t wait.

  “Rafe.” She gasped as he ground against her core at the sound of his name. “We can’t do this.”

  “I’m not moving on.” He nipped at her ear. “I’ve tried. I can’t do it. You’re it for me.”

  She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about his attempts to move on. Didn’t want to think about the mess they were currently making by opening this can of worms between them, either.

  She didn’t want to think, full stop. “I need to get back inside. Come over tonight and we can talk.”

  There wouldn’t be any talking. She was going to answer the door naked.

  But just as she talked herself into something totally foolish, he saved her from herself. He winced, and she felt the air around them drop five degrees. “I can’t come over tonight. I have to work.” His voice had a desperate edge to it, one with which she was all too familiar. “I’ll come to you as soon as we’re done.”

  Same old promise. She sagged against the tree, letting him go in more ways than one. “No.” He held her as she lowered her legs to the ground. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the look on his face. “I don’t want to re-hash that argument. I’m sorry.”

  She pushed past him and walked out of the woods. The pulsing pain in her chest wasn’t enough to make her turn around and take one last look. What she wanted—truly, deeply wanted—wasn’t on the table. Entertaining the lingering attraction between them would just cloud that reality.

  * * *

  — —

  * * *

  Rafe should have seen that coming. Foresight had always been his downfall with Liv. She wanted him to be perfect, and he was so far from that it wasn’t funny.

  She wasn’t wrong about him prioritizing work over their relationship. He just didn’t see any other way to be a cop and a soldier. Duty called, all the fucking time.

  He loped after her, slowing to a walk when he caught up. He kept a safe three feet between them and waited for her to speak.

  “Here’s your sweatshirt,” she said quietly, handing it over. Still not looking at him. “We should talk. Really talk. No more of…” she pointed to the woods behind them. “Whatever that was.”

  “I’m free on Sunday.” Two long days away. He wanted to promise tomorrow, but knew he couldn’t. Who knew how long the raid and all the associated statements, evidence collection and paperwork would take?

  “Are you going to your mom’s for dinner?”

  “Nah.” That stopped being fun the day he’d left Olivia. He showed up for command performances but the weekly thing was too painful.

  “You want me to feed you?” Her words were…not quite reluctant, but definitely not loaded with suggestion. He looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. “A peace offering.”

  “You don’t have anything to make up to me, Liv.”

  Her lips twisted into a sad smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “We can talk on Sunday. I have to get back to work.”

  He rolled those words over and over in his head as he drove to the small, three-story apartment building that he now called home. Thought about them as he took some melatonin, darkened his room and forced himself to sleep. They were the first thing on his mind when his alarm told him it was time to get up and, fifteen hours later when he dropped back into the exact same spot, he still hadn’t made any more sense of them.

  In between he hadn’t thought of Liv much, or her words, because that was how he pretended the dangers he faced every day at work couldn’t touch her. That the long stretch of wild lake shore on the peninsula wasn’t prime drug-trafficking territory and he hadn’t spent the last handful of hours waiting for a transfer bus to take some grower peons to the county jail. It was a drop in the bucket. Last night’s bust hadn’t netted any of the bosses—their goal in moving it up three days.

  It was possible that all three grow-ops that had been hit at once in a coordinated sting just happened to only have recent hires on site. More likely was the extraordinarily unsettling possibility that they’d been tipped off. And with only twelve hours’ notice, that narrowed the pool of potential turncoats to the officers involved and a limited number of support staff. All trusted.

  When they’d returned to the detachment office, Dean Foster had thrown a chair across the room.
Rafe couldn’t blame him—and while Dean had been letting loose in a rare tantrum of epic proportions, Rafe had quietly been watching the room.

  It wasn’t necessarily in their house. Three busts, three detachments. And a lot of tactical unit officers brought in from across the province. But he didn’t let out a sigh of relief when he only saw matching anger on the faces around him. That meant nothing.

  Cops made epic liars.

  On his way out, Dean had quietly stopped by Rafe’s desk and suggested he come over later in the afternoon for a beer, an offer he was definitely going to take his friend up on.

  The Fosters and the Minellis had grown up together. Dean and Zander had been in the same grade. Three years junior, Jake and Rafe had idolized their older brothers. Funny how that handful of years faded into nothing in adulthood. Even the younger siblings were all grown up now. Matt and Tom, both twenty-eight. And then the babies, Sean and Dani—the only girl between two families. It was like she had seven older brothers—and resented the shit out of it.

  Heaven help the asshole who’s stupid enough to fall in love with her.

  Dean and Rafe were the only two cops in the family. Matt and Dani worked together at Bruce EMS. Zander was full-time army out west. Jake owned his own construction business. Tom was a park ranger in the provincial park system that dotted Bruce Peninsula. And Sean…he liked to tell people he was an adventure racer. Rafe knew that the younger man grabbed more short-term Army contracts than anyone else in their reserve unit, went on every available course, and he’d jump at the next opportunity to go overseas. That worried Rafe, but Sean was a good kid. And not much of a kid anymore, but that was part of the problem. All of his brothers had tours in Afghanistan under their belts. Sean’s bad luck was being too young. By the time he’d graduated university and finished his officer training, the Canadian Forces were packing up in the sandbox.