Page 99 of An Unfinished Memory

“Come in whenever you want. I won’t complain about finding you naked in bed.” I could haul her straight to the bedroom, but once I had her naked, I wasn’t going to stop and feed myself. “I was just going to make something.”

“I’ll eat with you. What were you going to cook?”

Good thing I had more than beer and cereal. “I have a lasagna to throw in, but I add more cheese. Be right back.”

I ran out and moved her pickup. I closed the garage from the outside and jogged to the front steps. Another car pulled up. A little red convertible with the top up.

If I’d had the pizza in Ray’s office, I’d have heaved it up. What the hell was Carla doing at my house?

She parked on the curb and got out, a round container in her hands. “Yoo-hoo,Sheriff!”

I looked around. Was I being pranked? No way the first time Sutton visited me Carla showed up. “Is something wrong?” Maybe she was stopping to ask me to help someone else.

“Does something have to be wrong for me to visit you?” she purred. A white stocking hat was on her head, but the rest of her wasn’t dressed for winter weather unless she was doing snow yoga. She didn’t have a coat on either.

Acid was going to claw its way through my abdomen. Wasn’t she off the market? Why had I thought that meant she’d quit trying to sleep with me? “Carla, I can’t talk right now.”

“Oh, hush, Deputy. It’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s just beeneatingme up that you’re celebrating alone.”

“Aren’t you seeing someone?”

Her grin widened. Shit. She mistook my question for interest. “I’m as single as can be, Sheriff.”

The front door creaked open, and Sutton stepped out looking like my own personal snow bunny. She’d taken her winter coat off and had her -40-degree-rated boots on over her leggings, a clingy long-sleeved top that hugged her bust and hips, and her stocking hat still on her head with her light hair streaming out. The two women looked like they would both do snow yoga, but I knew which ass in leggings I’d be watching.

Carla glanced over, did a double take, and her eyes bulged out.

“Who said I’m alone?” I bit back a smile. Then shot Sutton anI had no idea, you’ve gotta believe melook.

“Carla,” Sutton greeted, dropping the temperature a few more degrees with her coolness.

“Sutton. Oh my god.” Carla swung her wide gaze toward me. “Oh, I didn’t know—” A switch flipped, and she adopted a cunning gleam in her eye. She shifted her gaze back to Sutton. “I thought I’d check on our future sheriff here. It’s not like I come byeverynight.”

Fuck’s sake. I’d already told this woman I wasn’t interested, and she was still trying to get into my bed even when Sutton was on my doorstep. I opened my mouth to deny, deny, deny and pray that Sutton believed I’d never seriously considered Carla as a bed buddy. I shouldn’t have used the woman to tempt Sutton into hooking up again.

“I know you don’t,” Sutton said. She came down the steps and stopped next to me, her hands on my arm. A twinkle of mirth danced in her gray eyes. “When he’s got a free night, he’s either on the phone with me or he’s inside me.”

A grin spread across my face.

Carla stuttered through a surprised “O-oh.”

“What can I say? I’m a weak man around her. Good thing I got myself a strong woman. Someone who understands me so much she knows when to walk away. I needed the wake-up slap.”

Sutton’s grip on me tightened. So did Carla’s gloves around the tray of whatever dessert she had brought for me. Her smile was forced. “Aren’t you two sweet?”

Sutton rested her head on my shoulder. “Night, Carla. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

I smiled down at Sutton, then wrapped my arm around her and left Carla behind. The confrontation was like tying a loose end. Sutton got some closure with a woman who’d intentionally hurt her feelings, Buffalo Gully would learn about my rekindled relationship by dawn, and I’d be left with the most important woman in my life.

Ray’s words in the office rose like unwelcome smoke. Carla would tell people. The chatter would start. Word would make it back to Ray. He might double down on me even more. I only had to endure his overzealousness until the middle of April. As for the small-town grapevine, I tried to find a fuck to give, and I couldn’t. Too much had interfered with me and Sutton. There would be limits this time.

Twenty-Three

Sutton

Knight for Sheriff.

A solid black statement against the faint outline of an Arabian’s head over the shape of a badge, written in serif font. I walked my fingers over the flat poster. The papers were scattered across the table, unusual for Wilder. I might’ve bypassed them if they were in a neat stack.

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