I like to think it was us.”

“Believe me, it was.”

“Maybe it was so hard over there because you expected to feel the way you did about being a marine before you had us. I bet lots of the other marines felt just like you, being away from their families. You just never had any practice at it before.”

• 186 •

Winds of Fortune

“I don’t think my father ever felt the way I did,” Reese said fl atly.

“You can’t be sure of that, but if it matters, maybe you should ask Kate.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not him.” Reese pulled Tory on top of her and kissed her. “Maybe I’m not the marine I thought I was, but I’m so much more because of you.”

“Darling, you are a fi ne marine. And a wonderful lover. And a great mother. And a perfect partner.” Tory kissed Reese’s throat, then her breast, then down the center of her abdomen. She rubbed her cheek against Reese’s lower belly. “I adore you.”

Reese combed her fi ngers through Tory’s hair and lifted her hips to guide Tory between her thighs. “Take me slow and easy this time.”

“I’d love to,” Tory whispered, brushing her lips over Reese’s clitoris.

Reese closed her eyes and sighed as Tory drew her between her lips. Light as bright as rocket fl ares burst behind her eyelids as Tory tongued her, and the heat spreading through her belly and thighs was like the desert, scorching her. But this time she burned not with uncertainty and apprehension, but with the sure and certain knowledge of who she was and where she belonged.

Reese’s cell phone rang, and Reese cursed. She was seconds from orgasm. When she tried to twist and reach for it, Tory pressed a hand against her belly and held her down, relentlessly teasing her with her mouth and tongue.

“Baby,” Reese moaned as the phone continued to ring and the pressure became so intense her stomach spasmed. She was so close and she needed the release so badly. The phone kept ringing. “Baby I should…” Tory pushed down on her stomach and entered her with her other hand and Reese went rigid. In the next breath, she came.

When Reese opened her eyes, her face was pillowed against Tory’s breasts. She didn’t remember Tory moving, didn’t remember Tory pulling her into her arms. She didn’t remember starting to cry.

“It’s all right, darling,” Tory soothed, stroking Reese’s face. “I promise, everything is all right.”

“I love you.”

“Mmm, I know. That’s my everything.”

“The phone—I should check…”

• 187 •

RADCLY fFE

“I know.” Tory leaned across Reese for the phone. With one arm around Reese’s shoulders, she handed it to her.

Still trembling from her orgasm, Reese checked the last number.

“It’s Bri.”

“Delegate. I’m not done with you yet.”

Grinning, Reese called back. “Conlon.” Listening, she tensed and sat up. “I’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” Tory asked as Reese disconnected and stood up.

“Are you on call tonight?”

“No, Nita. Why?”

Reese grabbed her pants and pulled them on. “Because I might need someone to give an offi cial time of death. Bri’s got medics working on someone right now.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Tory got out of bed and pulled on her robe.

“No. Go ahead and get the baby. It might take a while to sort this out. I’ll call Nita if I need her.”

Tory kissed Reese. “You okay?”

“A lot better than I was an hour ago.” Reese kissed her again and hurried toward the hall. “You should go ahead and have dinner. I love you.”

“Be careful.” Tory sank down on the side of the bed, her body still craving Reese’s touch. Despite missing her already, her heart felt lighter.

Reese had cried— something she almost never did. Tory couldn’t help but feel that these tears were just what they both needed.

❖

“So?” Deo said. “What do you think?”

“I want to marry your aunt,” Nita said, after savoring another bite of fra diavlo. “God, this is good.”

Deo laughed. “Told you.”

“I defi nitely made the right choice.”

“You mean dinner over wild sex with me?” Deo teased.

Nita pretended to look thoughtful. “Well, I don’t suppose there are many women who could…cook like this.”

“That’s cruel.” Deo reached across the table and took Nita’s hand.

• 188 •

RADCLY fFE

dashing off her fi ndings, she handed it back. “Do you need me for anything else here, Sheriff?”

“No. The rest of it will have to wait until they get him to Hyannis.

Thanks for coming out.”

“No problem. I’m sorry it turned out the way it did.”

“Me too.” Reese guided Nita up the muddy slope with a hand on her elbow. “You need a ride home?”

“That would be great. Thanks.” Nita sluiced water from her face with both hands. Her clothes were soaked, and her silk blouse clung to her in cold sheets.

“I’ll have Bri drive you.” Reese lifted up the yellow crime scene tape which Bri and Allie had hastily erected around the scene when they answered the call. “I’ve got a jacket in the car. You must be freezing.”

“I’ll take you up on tha—” Nita fell silent as Deo materialized from the small crowd of onlookers that had gathered outside the tape while she had been working. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need a ride,” Deo said. “This weather is getting worse by the second.”

“According to all reports,” Reese said, “we’re looking at a lot worse in the next fi ve days. Big storm coming up the coast.”

“Bad for fi shing,” Deo said, glancing out toward the harbor before moving closer to Nita. “My truck’s just up the street.”

Nita turned to Reese. “Thanks, Sheriff, but your offi cer doesn’t need to taxi me anywhere. Deo can take me home.”

“All right. Thanks again.” Reese touched her cap and headed back down to the scene.

“How long have you been here?” Nita asked, aware of people watching her as she made her way up the beach.

“A few minutes.” Deo slipped her arm around Nita’s waist. “By the time I got to my truck it was really coming down, and I knew you were walking. Do you mind?”

“I wish you hadn’t seen this. Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“No bad memories?”

Deo hesitated. “I don’t remember all that much.” She opened the Defender for Nita and held the door as she climbed in, then went around and got behind the wheel. “I remember people shouting and I remember being cold. So cold that I thought I’d never get warm.”

• 194 •

Winds of Fortune

Nita slid as close as she could and put her hand on Deo’s thigh.

“You’re cold now, too. And soaked.”

“I’m used to it.” Deo started the truck and pulled out onto Commercial Street. “The lights were in my eyes, red and blue and white fl ashes, and I couldn’t see anyone clearly, just shapes. It almost seemed as if I might be dreaming. I hoped I was. One of those bad dreams that feels so real while you’re having it, and then you wake up and you’re so happy it was just a dream.” She took a shaky breath. “But I didn’t wake up. Gabe was gone and everything changed.”

“I’m sorry. So sorry,” Nita murmured, stroking Deo’s hand where she clenched the steering wheel.

“Thanks,” Deo said roughly, grasping Nita’s hand and threading her fi ngers through Nita’s. “My condo is right around the corner. It might be July, but I think a fi re would be nice right about now.” She glanced at Nita. “After a hot shower.”

Nita’s stomach quivered and she forgot about being cautious. The specter of death, so fi nal, so brutal, still hovered around her. She was cold and sad and Deo offered her heat and a moment’s forgetting. It was enough.

“Yes.” She leaned across the space between them and kissed Deo’s neck. “That sounds perfect.”

❖

“First things fi rst,” Deo said, closing the door to her condo. She pointed across the living room, which was furnished with a tan sofa, matching chair, and a low glass table in front of a slate stone fi replace.

“The bedroom is up those stairs—fi rst door on the right. You can take your clothes off in there.”

Nita raised an eyebrow.

“Your wet clothes.” Deo pulled her own dripping polo shirt from her jeans. “I’ll bring you something dry. You can shower in my bathroom up there. I’ll use the one down here.”

“If you take that shirt off now,” Nita warned, “neither one of us is getting a shower.”

Deo hesitated, her shirt pulled high enough to expose her stomach and the curve of her breasts. “That sounds like a dare.”

“No,” Nita murmured, smoothing her palm over Deo’s stomach.

• 195 •

RADCLY fFE

“That’s a promise. God, I love your body.”

Deo shivered as Nita continued to caress her. “Nita. I’m wound up like a top.”

“Really.” Nita wrapped her arms around Deo’s neck and kissed her. They were both soaked, but the heat of Deo’s mouth and the promise of her touch warmed her all the way through. When Deo ran both hands down her back and then cupped her ass, she felt herself surge dangerously toward the boiling point. She didn’t want it to be that way, fast and furious and desperate. Not tonight. Not for this one night.

Tonight she needed it to be different. Despite all her instincts crying out to sate her desire, and quickly, she drew back. “I’m going to get out of these clothes.”

Breathing hard, Deo nodded wordlessly.

“Maybe you can start the fi re after you shower.” Nita kissed Deo lightly.

“Fire’s already started,” Deo muttered.

Laughing, Nita headed for the bedroom. When she found it, she closed the door, half wishing that Deo had followed and grateful that she hadn’t. Her hands were shaking as she unbuttoned her blouse. They were going to have sex. She knew that. She knew that Deo knew it.

It wouldn’t be the fi rst time she had kept an appointment for sex. She had gone places to have sex before, so many times she’d lost count.

Roadside motels. Borrowed apartments. Abandoned on-call rooms.

Assignations for pleasure that left her feeling empty and alone.

Sylvia was almost always there fi rst, and she would often take Nita the instant Nita walked in—a second’s frantic coupling against the door and then Sylvia would be inside her or on her knees, claiming her with her mouth. Nita was usually already so aroused just from anticipating Sylvia’s onslaught, hungering for the connection during the days and weeks when they had no contact—not even a phone call—

that she would rarely be able to hold back for more than a minute or two. She would come screaming, all the while wondering why she felt no satisfaction. Once was never enough for either of them, and for half an hour or forty-fi ve minutes Sylvia drove her relentlessly through one orgasm after another until Nita was too weak to move. All the while, Sylvia insisted that Nita was hers, that Nita was everything she needed, everything she wanted—her heart and her soul. And Nita let herself believe.

• 196 •

Winds of Fortune

Sighing, Nita slipped into the shower and prayed that the heat would penetrate to the cold place deep inside. She didn’t want to think of Sylvia, not tonight, not ever. When she stepped out, she found a thick white robe folded on the vanity and wondered when Deo had placed it there. She wondered, too, if Deo had looked at her through the steam-streaked glass doors and ached for her the way she ached. She fi nger-combed her hair and pulled on the robe, tying it loosely at the waist.

Halfway down the stairs, Nita felt the heat. Inside a fi re blazed while outside the storm raged, wind driving the rain with such force it sounded as if stones pelted against the skylights and glass doors. Deo lounged in the chair in front of the fi replace, two glasses of wine on the table beside her. Her short black robe came to mid-thigh and dipped into the valley between her legs. Trying to pretend she wasn’t going out of her mind waiting for Deo to touch her, Nita strolled to the chair, leaned down, and kissed Deo.

“Thanks for the robe. And the fi re.”

Deo tilted her head back and held out her hand. “You’re welcome.”

She tugged Nita around to sit on her lap and nuzzled her neck. “I love it when your hair is down.”

“I can’t do anything else when it’s wet like this, but I like the way it feels.” Nita caressed Deo’s neck and traced the curve of Deo’s breast underneath the material that slanted between her breasts. “I like the way you feel too.”

Nita lowered her head to kiss her just as Deo tilted her face up, and they came together with a hungry clash of mouths and tongues.

Deo’s hands were on her shoulders, then her waist, then inside her robe stroking her belly and her hip. Feasting on Deo’s mouth, answering her teasing tongue with strokes of her own, Nita was very quickly almost as far gone as she had been that night outside the bar when she hadn’t been able to stop herself from coming in Deo’s arms. Another few minutes of Deo’s tongue thrusting inside her mouth or the barest brush of Deo’s fi nger between her thighs, and she was going to climax.