Author: Jill Shalvis

“Well, damn,” Maddie said, disappointed. “I like Tara’s version better.”

Chloe didn’t. Not at all. She was glad there’d been no shots fired, but that still left the chase, the tackle, the wrestling…It wasn’t the first time she’d been forcibly reminded of how dangerous Sawyer’s job could be, but she marveled just the same at the ease in which he faced it all, day in and day out. “Are you okay?”

Sawyer met her gaze. Right. He was always okay. And if he wasn’t, no one would ever know otherwise because he’d keep it to himself. The thought made her wonder if maybe they didn’t have more in common with each other than she’d imagined possible.

“The paper said that the perp was in the middle of a divorce, and he just snapped,” Tara said. “His ex is taking him to the cleaner’s, and he’s going around stealing money to pay his lawyers. Takes all kinds of crazy.”

Sawyer nodded, and Chloe had to laugh at the resigned look on his face. Clearly he had seen the “all kinds of crazy.”

“You were definitely the talk of the town yesterday,” Maddie said. “Our hero.” She grinned as he grimaced and pushed away from the counter.

“But that’s not all that happened to you yesterday,” Tara said.

Sawyer slanted her a look. “Yes, it is.”

“Nope. You also got called to Mrs. Abbott’s house.”

“Which turned out to be nothing,” Sawyer said.

“Not exactly nothing,” Maddie broke in.

“Maddie.” Sawyer’s voice was meant to scold, but he actually sounded patient and maybe slightly amused. Definitely gentle.

Chloe was fascinated by this glimpse of a gentle Sawyer. But then again, Maddie inspired that in a man.

Chloe sure as hell didn’t. “What happened? Is Mrs. Abbott okay?”

“Mrs. Abbott’s fine,” Sawyer said.

“Only because you rode in on your white horse to save the day.” Maddie turned to Chloe. “Her smoke alarm went off, and Sawyer got there first.”

“Oh no,” Chloe said, genuinely dismayed. Mrs. Abbott was a favorite of hers. Chloe made her a special moisturizer weekly, the only thing that helped ease the older woman’s psoriasis symptoms. They had tea, and Mrs. Abbott would regale Chloe with tales of her wild youth. “Was there a fire?”

“No.” Clearly trying to get out before Maddie finished her story, Sawyer moved to the door.

Chloe tore her gaze off his very fine ass and glanced at her sister.

“No fire,” Maddie assured her. “And not twenty minutes later, the smoke alarm went off again. And then again, with Sawyer responding each time.”

Sawyer stopped with a sigh. “Only once more, not twice.”

“I have got to start reading Facebook,” Chloe said. “What was wrong?”

Maddie grinned. “Her smoke alarm needed a new battery.”

“Aw,” Chloe said. “Those things are a bitch.”

“No, the ‘aw’ is that Sawyer went to the store for her and bought a battery,” Maddie said. “Then he came back and put it in for her. So sweet.”

Sawyer looked pained. “Not sweet, a necessity. I was tired of driving out there.”

“Sweet,” Maddie repeated.

Chloe snorted, and Sawyer’s eyes cut to hers. “Like you’d want to be called sweet,” he said.

“Not me,” she said. “But then again, I’m not even halfway close to sweet.”

And truthfully, neither was he, she thought. He was big and bad and alpha and gorgeous and smart and brave and loyal…

But not sweet. Hell, no.

“It’s okay,” Tara told him, patting his shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with us.”

“Bullshit if it is,” he grumbled. “You’ll tell Ford and Jax. And Jax’s such a girl that he’ll tell…everyone.”

“And what’ll happen then?” Chloe asked. “Will they revoke your man card?”

In tune to Maddie’s and Tara’s laughter, Sawyer muttered something beneath his breath about the entire female gender and was gone.

Chapter 7

“Always remember, you’re unique.

Just like everyone else.”

Chloe Traeger

The next day Sawyer was sitting in the hospital, waiting to hear how his father’s surgery had gone. The TV was tuned to some soap opera, and there was no remote in sight. After two hours, he was feeling a little trigger happy and might have shot the thing, but Chloe showed up. She plopped down next to him.

“All My Children?” she asked. “Didn’t peg you as the type.”

“I’m not watching it.”

She made the exaggerated motion of checking out the room.

He was the only one in it.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What are you doing here?”

She handed him a bag. “Bringing you pick-me-up muffins from Tara. Banana–chocolate chip. She says they can fix anything.”

Well, that explained her presence. Tara had sent her on a Good Samaritan errand. There were four muffins in the sack. He handed one to her and started in on the other three, finishing them before she’d finished hers.

“Hey. How’s that a fair division?” she asked.

“Weight ratio.”

She slid her eyes over his body, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she also sucked in a breath, but all she said was “Hmm.”

She finished her muffin before she said, “Oh! Almost forgot!” and pulled out a thermos from her huge purse. “Milk.”

He offered her the first sip, and when she shook her head, he downed it.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded, and she laughed softly. “Don’t hog all the words, Sheriff.” Not appearing overly insulted, she settled in next to him, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, her legs stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles.

“I figure we can do this one of two ways,” she said. “Awkward silence, or I could keep talking and you can pretend to listen.”

“Or you could leave.”

“Yeah, but it’s much more fun to stay and make you squirm.”

“You don’t make me squirm.”

Her fathomless green eyes met his. “I make you something.”

Yeah. She sure as hell did. “Annoyed?” he offered. “Irritated? Frustrated? Infuriated?”

“Horny.”

He shook his head, but hell if she wasn’t right. “Option two.”

“Irritated?” she asked.

“No. You talk.”

She laughed, then talked about her last trip to Belize, where she’d gotten the small tattoo on the inside of her wrist, which apparently meant “Be Yourself.” “Hurt like a bitch,” she said. “And Tara’s certain that I’ll never land a corporate job because of the location—it’s hard to cover it up. She’d probably freak if she saw my other tat, but she won’t because it’s…discreetly placed,” she said, flashing a grin.

Sawyer thought about that for a very pleasant beat, enjoying the distraction of picturing where and what that might be. “Do you anticipate wanting a job in the corporate world?” he asked, unable to envision her in an office setting, all tamed and subdued.

She laughed. “Sitting behind a desk making nice? No, I’m not sure I have that in me.”

“What do you have in you?”

Chloe looked surprised at the question. “Well, I’d like to get this natural skincare line I’m creating off the ground.”

“That sounds…surprisingly corporate.”

“Bite your tongue,” she said.

He found himself smiling.

“Wow,” she said. “You should do that a lot more.”

He ignored that. “You like what you do.”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t that the point?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, conceding with a nod. “Did you always know what you wanted to do?”

“Yeah. When I was little, I camped with my mom all the time. Did you know that?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know much about her past at all. He’d known Phoebe though, and she hadn’t exactly been the mothering type.

“Maddie and Tara grew up with their dads, but I was with Phoebe. Camping,” Chloe said. “Mostly we traveled from one Grateful Dead concert to the next; sometimes we’d go off for another adventure. But I always had everything I owned in a little Saved by the Bell backpack.”

He felt something tighten in his chest, and it took him a moment to speak. “That must have been hard for a little girl.” His childhood had been a world away. He’d had a house, a miserable house, but a roof over his head regardless.

“Oh, I liked it,” Chloe said. “I mean, we were poor as dirt, of course, but I didn’t know that. We made the things we needed when we could. Soap, shampoo, stuff like that. I loved figuring out which scents went best with which ingredients.”

Of course, she would have made the best of the cards she’d been dealt. But the nomad life had to have been rough. He had no idea how things would have been different for him without Ford and Jax, who’d given him a taste of stability. And then, after getting arrested, he’d found a different, even more stabilizing force in his arresting officer, of all people. Sheriff Allen Coburn had been the first adult to take the time to show interest. To care. He’d straightened Sawyer’s ass out by checking on him weekly, and had until his death a few years back.

It didn’t sound like Chloe had had any such stabilizing forces, at least not until this past year. “Moving around like that,” he said. “How did you go to school and make friends?”

“Phoebe homeschooled me for the most part, until high school. We settled in San Francisco for a while because she had a boyfriend who was a theater stagehand. I went to school there.”

“You and your mom lived with the boyfriend?”