Page 6 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart

This was a one-night thing. I wasn’t going to pour my heart out to a woman I was never going to see again. I played dumb, pushing away her astute observation. “Slapping things? Yeah, it’s why everyone likes it.”

“Hm.” She raised an eyebrow, letting me know she knew I was full of shit, but she didn’t push for more. There wasn’t more, which was the whole point of a one-night stand. There was just tonight, and even that hadn’t gone as planned.

Rose yawned. “I should get home.” I moved to combine our sets into one deck, but she stopped me. “The game isn’t over. To be continued.”

A lie, but a nice one. I allowed it, leaving the deck where it was. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

After seeing her safely to her Jeep, I returned to my empty room and the deck of cards. I shook my head ruefully, remembering her words. To be continued. Really? She hadn’t offered her phone number, and I hadn’t asked. But I didn’t let reality stop me from slipping a small bit of scrap paper between the two piles before carefully joining them together in their box. A stupid thing to do, really.

I was never going to see Rose again.

Chapter 3

Kate

The insistent press of the doorbell startled me awake the next morning. I rubbed my eyes and peered at the clock on my nightstand. Seven a.m.

No. Absolutely not.

Maria and Juan wouldn’t bring Jessica back until dinnertime, as always. Betty and Jean, two septuagenarians who had retired only to discover they were bored to tears, had the weekend shift at Sweet Things.

Which meant that I had big plans for today, including sleeping in until 8:30, a brunch date with a book at Dreamer’s Café, the local eatery that melded Salvadoran traditions with American and had put Hart’s Ridge on every foodie map, and watching Bridgerton in my sweats.

My plans did not include being woken up before the sun graced us with its presence.

Suddenly, I remembered. Mom. Oh God. Eighteen times I hit ignore, and when I finally answered? I had hung up on her. She wasn’t going to let that go.

I loved my mom, but she was a lot easier to love when she wasn’t standing on my doorstep at an ungodly early hour. Unlike my phone, I couldn’t ignore the doorbell because Grace Locklear was absolutely the kind of woman to stand there all day if she had to.

I tossed back the bedcovers and shoved my feet into my slippers. “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered as I thumped down the stairs of the small Craftsman-style bungalow I shared with Jessica.

The doorbell chimed again, long and hard this time, as though someone had leaned against it with purpose.

“I’m coming!” I hollered. I unbolted the lock and yanked open the door. “You don’t have to—”

It wasn’t Mom.

It was Eli Carter, the one and only police officer of Hart’s Ridge. He stood there, his cell phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, and looked me up and down. He grinned, at the expense of my frilly pajamas, no doubt. Or maybe it was the very worn, much-loved bunny slippers that graced my feet, a Christmas gift from Jessica when she had been only seven.

“Yeah, she’s alive,” he said into the phone.

A series of indecipherable girlish shrieks from the phone made us both wince. Oh, right. I had forgotten all about the text I had sent Emma—who happened to be Eli’s girlfriend. I cleared my throat and stood up straight, crossing my arms over my chest. Because I had nothing to be embarrassed about. Sex wasn’t embarrassing.

Crying during sex, however. The memory flooded back in a whoosh, making my cheeks feel hot. Yeah, that was embarrassing.

But Eli didn’t know about that, and by god, he never would. That was the upside to sex with hot, sexy strangers who were only passing through. They couldn’t tell tales.

“Okay, I’ll tell her.” Eli hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket. He looked at me. “Call Emma.”

“Of course,” I said regally.

He looked me up and down again, and this time, I had the distinct feeling he was checking for damage. “You okay?” he asked gently.

“Of course,” I said again.

But I felt a twinge, somewhere deep in my soul. Eli wouldn’t have asked that question of anyone else. For anyone else, going home with a man wouldn’t be a big deal. For me, the Widow of Hart’s Ridge, it was tremendous. Out of character. The first sign of a psychological collapse, maybe.

I was okay, wasn’t I? Physically, I was fine. I hadn’t accidentally gone home with an axe murderer or anything. Emotionally? I was all in one piece. But I couldn’t say I was truly fine. I felt…unfinished, somehow. Lost. Before last night, everything was easy. Everything was clear.

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