Snow Bound (12 page)

The taller of the two was the real talker
,
though. “What man in his right mind would let a woman defend him? I mean, weren’t you a soldier way back when
—
”

As if Damon were fifty instead of thirty-two.

“
—
I thought you boys kicked asses and took names. Not let a prett
y little princess do it for ya.”

In less than a second
Damon was on his feet with hi
s fist in motion.
Colin was just as quick and caug
ht his arm with
enough to blunt the force as Damon’s fist connected with the fo
ol’
s jaw. No one called
Tori
“
Princess
”
except for him.

Like most overgrown bullies, Damon’s opponent overreacted to the chin tap. He stumbled backward with a loud howl, clutching his jaw and whining, though the punch would barely leave a mark.

Damon didn’t hold back a grin of satisfaction. “Who’s the pussy now?”

That got the guy back on his feet
,
and he advanced with rage in his puffy eyes. But
Colin
decided to take control before the situation could get more o
ut of hand. “I suggest, Jacobs,
that you head back to your game before I turn that table over to someone else.”

“What?” The guy
started sputtering and cursing. “He’s the one who punched me. Why isn’t he leaving?”

Colin
leaned across the bar into Damon’s peripheral vision. He could just see the twisted grin on the guy’s face. “Because I happen to like him. Now get on before I have the boys from the kitchen es
cort you to your car.”

The guys decided it wasn’t worth getting thrown out of their hot pool game just to razz him, so they backtracked to the
pool
room, waving pints of beer
and mouthin’ off about whup
ping
Damon’s ass.

Damon ignored them,
frowning into his beer and ref
lecting on how this even
ing out wasn’t nearly as exciting
as getting back into
Tori’s pants. D
id that make hi
m any better than those yahoo
s?

“Excitement dies down r
eal slow
in a small town,” Colin
said.

Damon released his breath in a quiet huff. “Yeah, I’m get
tin
’ that. Thanks, by the way.”

Colin swiped at the gleaming
bar near Damon
’s half-
empty plate. “I can remember another time
news
didn’t disappear
so quickly.
Tori
put up with a lot from people around here when she first testified.”

“Yeah?”

Colin
nodded. “At first everyone was
really resentful.
Football is a religion in the S
outh. For small towns like this, wher
e the high school team is
their on
ly live option
, it
’
s ev
en worse.” He p
aused and gave Damon a once
-
over. “Of course, being from
Texas
, you probably understand that.”

Damon confirmed with a short nod.
His own mother had explained to him, not long after he moved out, that she never considered going to the police over his father’s abuse. The backlash over her testimony against one of the town’s few doctors would have been epic.

“Put the hometown hero in jail, and your ass is grass. But when the details started to leak, opinion swung the other way. Then her parents died a year later
’
and everyone treated her like a fragile piece of glass.”

Damon snorted. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“I gathered that after watching her in here a time
or two,” Colin
said. “But once that sort of thing takes hold, it
’
s hard to shake
. She might be a grown woman and
a
great business owner, but to folks a
round here she’s still a pretty
princess.”

“Those fools didn’t see her standing over
Bobby Joe Resmondo
, swinging a
Maglite
.”

The men shared a grin. Just the thought of
Tori
in her lacy pantie
s, robe, and weapon had him straining against the zipper of
his jeans. “She was something else.”

“I bet. So why are you sitting here on a Saturday night instead of home with her?”

Damon met the ot
her man’s knowing gaze.
Why indeed?
“Because I’m an idiot?”

“I know that’s your parent
s’
place, dear, but you really should consider movin’ closer to town. It
’s much safer for a young woman
alone.”

Tori bit her lip to keep from asserting
once more that
she could take care of herself. Mrs. Whitman meant well; she truly did. Everyone did when they fussed over her and at her for her choices. That didn’t
quiet the resentment and frustration that pressed against her polite silence
.

“Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Whitman.”

The elder
ly
woman patted Tori’s hand before picking
up
her monthly stack of romances. “You take care of yourself, hon. And think about what I said.”

“I will.”

Tori breathed ou
t a relieved sigh as her
concerned
neighbor left t
he bookstore
. A glance at the clock told her it was almost closing
time. On Saturdays she locked the doors
early, since most of the town headed into Huntsville or Nashville for excitement on the weekends instead of planning a quiet evening near the square. Even though the snow
had only allowed her to open
for two days this week, she was glad she didn’t have to be back at work until Monday.

All the questions and comments about her “little drama”
in the week since the snowstorm
were draining her dry.
And if she had to listen to one more person go on about how dangerous it was for her to be living so far out without a man to protect her, she just might scream.
Good thing that man was there to take care of you
, her ass!

But it wasn’t nearly as upsetting as Damon’s continued absence. He’d stayed at her house for another three days. The
first thirty-two hours had been naturally tense with
a restrained criminal tied up in the living room. But the police department had made her
road top priority once Damon
managed to get a call out
on his cell phone
,
and they’d picked
Bobby Joe
up as qui
ckly as they could get the snow
plow through.

Damon had
hung out at her house through the police questioning
and phone calls once the news
spread. Then they’d unplugged the phone and gone to bed, sleeping and making love until the snow melted enough for them to open their respective businesses again. True to his reputation, she hadn’t heard from Damon since.

She was ashamed to admit that she’d
watched his house late at night
after she’d doused the lights. To his credit, no strange cars had
appeared
and he’d returned home from work alone. But that didn’t stop the ache of loneliness. Damon had given her a glimpse of the type of rel
ationship she’d always wanted—
hot sex, understanding
, comfort, and mutual respect—
and now she knew what she was missing.
Her body ached for him like a broken
tooth in need of Novocain. She found herself thinking of things to talk to him about throughout the day. How was it possible to miss someone you
’d known such a short time? Understanding was beyond her
, but what she fe
lt was real. And her heart hurt
that he didn’t feel the same.

Still, like every other unpleasant reality in
her life, she pushed herself through the fallout
. Dealt with the notoriety, the nightmares, and the unrelieved lust in the solitary confinement of her familiar home with its new locks and dea
dbolts. And hid the ache for
things she couldn’t have.

As the bell on the door sounded behind her, she sighed. The clock said ten minutes to closing. She should have just locked up early. Knowing her luck, it was another one of the loc
als eager to rehash her
ordeal
.

“Evening, Tori.”

Her heart stopp
ed for a moment as she looked around
to meet that
amused brown
gaze, then started again double-time. Damon. The pretty princess inside wanted to swoon while the cheerleader jumped for joy, but the grown woman, perfectly capable of controlling her emotions, simply allowed a welcoming smile to grace her lips.

“Hey, Damon. How’re you?”

“I can finally walk without wincing,” he said, though she doubted he’d let a few bumps and bruises stop him from anything he wanted to do. It certainly hadn’t sl
owed his performance in her bed—

Eager to get away from that train of thought, she focused on the conversation. “Me too, although the bruises across
my lower back aren’t pretty.”

He strode closer
, making her grateful for the countertop that hid her sh
aking hands. He was
gorgeous in his
T-shirt
and jeans, c
overed by a leather jacket
. She swallowed as her mouth watered, resisting the urge to tug at the neck of her cashmere sweater.

“I’ve been hearing about you all over town,” he said.

“Why would they be talking about me when they can be drilling you for details?”

He grinned, resting
his arms on the high countertop
. “Oh, they do that first, but somehow everyone always gets around to telling me what a brave, wonderful woman you are.”

Tori cursed her light coloring as she felt her cheeks heat. “Isn’t it funny? Almost ten years ago they were cursing me for sending the town golden boy to jail. Now my doing the same renders me a heroine. And I thought life didn’t change in
Cadence
that much.”

“Regardless, they’re right,” he said. “You are brave.”

She shrugged away the compliment. “
Actually
most of them allocate that trait to you
.”

He slipped around the counter, invading
her personal safe zone
. “L
ots of women run and hide. You stood up for yourself, and me.”

“Wouldn’t have done me a lot of good if you hadn’t been there.”

“But you tried.” His voice lowered, reminding her of how it deepened to gravel when he was aroused. “And you succeeded.”

Uneasy with the atten
tion, she tried to maintain a
light
tone
. If he kept talking to her like that, she was liable to disgrace herself by tearing off his clothes and having her way with him right here on the counter top. “But I did faint.”

“That you di
d. Like a true Southern belle
.”

She turned away from his admiring gaze before it could seduce her out of her common sense, and pulled the slip and money bag out of the drawer so she could
close
up. But no sooner
had the drawer slid shut
than a familiar heat presse
d against her back. She bit down on
a
groan as the full slide of his body—a very hard body—
met hers. There
was no mistaking the rigid length now pressing against her backside
, reminding her of the first time he’d come, just from rubbing against her cheeks.

She had to clear her throat a time or two before her voice would work. “What are you doing?”

He bent close so that he spoke into her ear. “What does it feel like? I’ve missed you, Tori.”