Till I Kissed You Read online

  It was another twenty minutes before she extricated herself from the next man who wanted to discuss zoning regulations of all things. The parking lot was almost deserted. Almost. A shiny black pickup sat two rows over from her red VW Bug. Sawyer was propped against a column in what she was now referring to as his Sawyer-stance. He must have practiced in the mirror and decided it emphasized all his good parts. Not that she’d noticed any bad parts, dangit.

  “The custodian is fixing to lock up, so you won’t be able to sneak back inside.” She stomped down the stone stairs, and he fell into step beside her.

  “Just getting some air before I head out. It’s a pretty night, isn’t it?” He sounded friendly, jovial even.

  She shot him a suspicious side-eye. What was he up to? Deciding to play along, she looked up. Even with the town’s light pollution, the sky was unusually full of stars. A cool front had moved in and cut the humidity, making the night pleasant.

  When they reached the parking lot and he should have headed left toward his truck, he kept pace with her. She pivoted toward him with her hands on her hips. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “It’s dark. There’s no one around. I’m making sure you get to your car is all.”

  A warmth unfurled in her stomach as a good portion of her vitriol faded. “I’m a grown-up. I can handle myself.”

  “I would do this for any woman, so don’t go thinking you’re special or something. ’Cause you’re not.”

  His words snuck past her defenses. She swallowed against a sudden well of tears. What was wrong with her? The question had too many meanings. Why was she crying over some petty insult? Why had he cheated on her so many years ago? Why did he still have the power to wound her so brutally? Why couldn’t she let the past go and move on?

  She sucked her top lip between her teeth and bit down hard. She spun away and strode to her car. Her heel stuck in a crack, and she stumbled. Cursing under her breath, she slipped her foot out, bent over, and yanked the heel from the crack, continuing with one shoe on and one off with as much dignity as she could muster. He was probably doubled over, hee-hawing at her less than graceful retreat. Sliding behind the wheel, she finally looked at him.

  He was standing where she’d left him, not so much as smiling, as if someone had yelled “Freeze!” She drove off, making the turn onto the main street with a squeal of her tires. That glass of wine waiting at home had just turned into a bottle.

  * * *

  Sawyer wanted to stuff the words back in his mouth. The woman could rile him up like no one else. He hated the way she could make him feel guilty and self-righteous and turned on all at the same time. But, the look on her face … Surely, those hadn’t been tears in her eyes. And, had her chin quivered? If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he hurt her feelings. A stabby pain poked around his chest as if his heart was trying to kick his butt.

  He didn’t mind her thinking he came to the council meeting to goad her. Let her assume he was behind Ms. Martha’s demands. Because the truth was much more damning. She was special, and he’d come tonight because he was worried about her.

  Damn but she was hot as sin when she was mad. That shot of red in her blonde hair was no lie. The heels she traipsed around in made her legs look killer, and her polished, professional clothes made him feel like a straw-chewing swamp rat.

  When she’d cornered him in the dim hall, the same dizzying, off-balance stomach lurch he’d felt the first time he’d ever seen her had him leaning against the wall for support. He’d nearly done something imbecilic like lean in and take her lips. Maybe spin her around and press her against the wall. Thank goodness he’d tamped down the urge. She would have kneed him between the legs and laughed.

  After staring at the blank space she’d left for too long, he got himself moving in the direction of his truck. He hesitated on the turn out of the parking lot. Left would take him back across the river and to his farmhouse. Right would take him into the heart of Cottonbloom, Mississippi’s, nicest neighborhoods.

  He turned right and muttered, “Tally’s right. I am losing my mind.”

  Foolish thoughts reverberated in the silence, and he flipped on the radio. Ever since the pavilion fire in June, he’d been concerned someone was out to sabotage the festivals. Adding in the suspicious letter Monroe had mentioned Regan received and the crayfish basket vandalism in July, and his concern had exploded into outright worry.

  He’d lost sleep going over every scenario. The most likely explanation centered around Regan’s plans for Cottonbloom, Mississippi’s, revitalization. He couldn’t imagine any of his people sabotaging crayfish baskets. The parish economy followed the harvest. A good harvest meant increased dollars and more jobs. A bad harvest meant seasonal layoffs or worse. The food banks running out of donations and good people moving to bigger cities for work and never returning.

  The reassessments and increased taxes had ratcheted tensions upward on the Mississippi side of the river. He commiserated with business owners like Ms. Martha. It was a challenge to stay competitive, and losing the Quilting Bee would be gut-wrenching. It had been there since Sawyer could remember.

  On the other hand, Regan was doing good work. She had turned downtown Cottonbloom, Mississippi, into something special and was poised to make it amazing. Already they were attracting out-of-towners and pulling in money. Her festival was just another piece of the puzzle for her, but she had seriously derailed his modest efforts to bolster the economy on his side of the river.

  He needed that grant money for his plans. Financing the restoration of Cottonbloom Park and the baseball fields was impossible with the current parish budget. He couldn’t justify taking money away from social and road projects for the park. While flipping through a Heart of Dixie magazine in the break room at the auto factory, he’d spotted the call for entries.

  Maybe Regan hadn’t realized he’d already entered, but she hadn’t backed out once the magazine insisted they hold competing festivals, highlighting the already divided, sometimes acrimonious nature of their towns. Apparently, calling dibs didn’t work as an adult. He’d been angry, and in his anger had done some immature, debatably insane things to needle her. She’d retaliated with glee. Recent events, however, had tempered his fury into something else.

  His drive down streets lined with stately oaks and big two-story brick or Colonial-style houses had him tightening his hands on the wheel. It wasn’t the money. He could afford any one of the houses. Fournette Designs paid even better than his position as manager at the auto factory. His discomfort ran deeper.

  He was an interloper in Cottonbloom, Mississippi. The disdain from people like Regan’s parents had left an indelible mark on him. One he’d tried to erase, but had only ever managed to cover up. Something would happen—a look, a word—and old insecurities would bleed through his confidence. Dating Regan in high school had been reaching for the stars, amazing until he’d been incinerated.

  He crossed paths with a rough-looking silver truck heading in the opposite direction and pumped his brakes. What the heck was his uncle Delmar doing in Cottonbloom, Mississippi, this time of night? The silver truck’s one working taillight faded in the distance, and Sawyer put the oddity to the side. His uncle’s nighttime activities were none of his business. Never had been. Anyway, Sawyer hardly wanted to explain why he was out and about.

  Feeling a little like a stalker or an ex-boyfriend, which technically he was, he turned onto her street, killed his headlights, and sank down in his seat, even though his big black truck was unmistakable.

  The old truck she used to haul furniture and her red VW Bug were in the driveway of her house, the garage doors shut. A couple of lights were on in the front of her house, and movement shadowed behind too-thin curtains. Everything was quiet. He blew out a breath and kept driving, flipping on his lights at the end of her street.

  She was safe. For now.

  Chapter Three

  The next night, Regan lounged on her couch eating popcorn and nursing
a headache. Whether it was remnants of a hangover or from all the calls and texts and emails about the city budget or the second mildly threatening letter that had been waiting in her mailbox, she couldn’t pinpoint. All she wanted was a quiet night of mindless TV.

  Her phone vibrated. She rolled her eyes and glanced at the screen, ready to let it go to voice mail. She was officially off the clock. It was her mother. Dare she not answer? Her parents lived four houses down the street and could step onto their front porch and see her car in the driveway. While her interior design shop downtown was in a great location and quaint, it was short on storage and her garage was full of knickknacks and tables and lamps instead of her car.

  Sighing, she pasted on a smile—because her mother could tell even over the phone—and answered. “Hello, Mother.”

  “Thank God, you’re there. Someone is behind the garden.” The strident panic in her mother’s voice had Regan bolting up and spilling popcorn everywhere.

  “Geez. Are the police on the way?” She was out the door and running down the sidewalk in two seconds flat.

  “I haven’t called them. Thought it might be that Fournette boy again.” Even over two years of dating, her mother had never referred to Sawyer by name. He’d always been “that Fournette boy” or, when she was really trying to make a painful point, “that Louisiana rat.”

  Unfortunately, her mother was probably right. She was almost positive she’d recognized the tailgate of Sawyer’s truck last night. Who drove down someone’s street with their headlights off unless they were planning something nefarious?

  “I’m going straight around back. Where’s Daddy?”

  “At the American Legion playing cards.”

  “Call the police.” She disconnected, slid her phone into the back of her shorts, and jogged on her toes around the backyard fence. Sawyer was in for it. She was going to take him out this time. No mercy.

  Two months earlier, Sawyer, his brother Cade, and his uncle Delmar had snuck across the field from the river intending to drop rabbits in her mother’s yard. The herd would have destroyed her mother’s prize tomato plants.

  But her connections on his side of the river had paid off. Rufus, of Rufus’s Meat and Three fame, had let something suspicious slip when she’d been picking up her weekly pork barbeque fix.

  She’d jumped Sawyer—literally—before he could complete his mission. Their roll around the ground had ended with him pinning her wrists by her head and his body pressing her into the high grass. The rest of the memory she shoved out of her head. She needed to focus.

  She slowed at the back edge of the fence and peeked around. A man in dark wash jeans like the ones Sawyer had been wearing at the town meeting and a gray hoodie pulled over his head was running a hand along the fence, searching for the gate latch.

  With a rebel yell that would have made her ancestors proud, she sprinted toward him. He startled around, frozen for a moment. Dropping whatever was in his hand, he took off through the copse of pines, heading toward the river.

  She followed. A pinecone bit into the arch of one foot and sent her reeling into the rough bark of a nearby tree. The sharp spines of another cone grazed the outside of her other foot. She limped through the rest of the trees like navigating a minefield. Nothing moved, as far as she could see in the dark. Sawyer had escaped.

  “Sawyer Fournette, you coward!” Her words echoed through the night.

  The pain in her foot paled in comparison with her anger. She skirted the pine trees and found the bottle he had dropped by the fence. Grass killer. Powerful enough to kill tomato plants too.

  She let herself in through the back gate. First thing tomorrow, she would buy a padlock. Her mother rushed out of the back door. Deputy Thaddeus Preston stepped out behind her at a more sedate pace.

  “Well?” her mother asked.

  “He got away, but he dropped this.” She handed the bottle over. All Preston did was hum and turn it over to read the back label. “It was Sawyer Fournette, Deputy, you know it was.”

  The deputy turned icy blue eyes on her. Truth be told, the man intimidated the snot out of her, even if she was mayor and technically his boss. Keith Thomason had been police chief since she’d been in middle school, and she and Keith were on a comfortable, first-name basis. But, with Thomason’s retirement imminent, Thaddeus Preston was biding his time to step into the bigger shoes. He was gruff and formidable and more than competent.

  “You’re positive? You want to come down to the station and file?” A single dark eyebrow quirked.

  Regan shifted on her feet, the throb on the arch of her right foot growing more pronounced. “I didn’t actually see his face, but it was him. You know about the rabbit fiasco in June. And I’m pretty sure I saw him driving down our street last night. With his headlights off. It’s only logical.”

  Preston sighed. “I heard about the rabbit fiasco, along with everyone else, but no official complaint was filed. Did you call anything in last night?”

  “No.” She huffed. “He wasn’t doing anything but driving.”

  “Exactly. Seems to me whoever this was intends harm to your garden, not to you, Mrs. Lovell.” He directed his comments to her mother, which made Regan feel about ten years old.

  “Can you at least dust that for prints or something?” Regan asked.

  “We can try.” His radio beeped and a woman’s voice rattled off some numbers. “Another call. My guess is the man won’t be back, but make sure you lock up tight and call if you see anything suspicious. Anything at all. My patrols will keep an eye out and drive by more often than usual. Night, ladies.”

  The hint of condescension in his voice sent her anger-meter to boil. Fine, if he wouldn’t pursue Sawyer Fournette, she would. In fact, if he was in his boat, which made sense since he took off toward the river, she might be able to beat him home and catch him with his pants down—so to speak.

  “You lock up and call Daddy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She bypassed the house and made for the side gate. Her mother called out a protest she ignored. If she was going to catch him, she needed to hightail it to his farmhouse.

  She grabbed her keys and was on the road in thirty seconds. Counting on Deputy Preston to be tied up with his other call, she drove fast and reckless, skidding to stop by the drooping willow tree out in front of Sawyer’s old white farmhouse. Not even the porch light was on, and she fist-pumped. Unless he was playing possum, she’d beat him back.

  She turned the car off, but left the keys in the ignition and the door open in her haste. Curses and exclamations and insults rattled through her head as she ran around the side of his house toward the river. She didn’t bother being quiet.

  A shaft of moonlight reflected off the rippling water. She stopped. Her feet sank into the damp sandy bank. A boat tied to a wooden pylon of a small dock made a thumping sound with the current. Nothing moved. Even the frogs and bugs had quieted in the heart of the night.

  Her mind whirled. Sawyer probably had more than one boat and more than one mooring on the river. He owned a large parcel of land. But she was barefoot, and it was black as pitch through the trees farther downstream. It would be foolish to keep going. What now?

  “Who’s out there?” Sawyer’s deep voice boomed in the quiet.

  She whirled, pinned by a flashlight. “Turn it off, it’s just me.” She held a hand up and blinked, but couldn’t see beyond the cone of light.

  “Just you.” He barked a laugh that held no humor. “What are you doing out here? Holy hell, are you looking for more baskets to sabotage?”

  “Me? Don’t you dare turn this around on me. I’m here because you were upriver prowling outside of Mother’s house tonight.”

  He was silent. The circle of light dropped to her feet before he switched off the flashlight. She was effectively blind.

  “I haven’t stepped foot over the river today.” His voice was softer.

  She took a tentative step forward, blinking to regain her sight. “Someone was up there, and he s
ure looked like you. Who else would be creeping around Mother’s tomatoes? With industrial-strength grass killer?”

  He muttered, and she imagined him running a hand through his hair, because that’s what he did when he was exasperated. “I swear it wasn’t me.” A slap sounded on bare skin. “I’m getting eaten up out here by skeeters. Come on inside.”

  Still mostly blind, she took two steps, caught a root with her big toe, and went down. Rocking on her hands and knees, she clamped her lips together and hummed until the acute pain receded.

  “You okay?” He wrapped a hand around her upper arm and helped her up. She would have shaken him off if her foot hadn’t been hurting like the devil. Her toe throbbed in concert with the pain of the pinecone thorn still in the arch.

  He tugged her toward the house, and she limped alongside him. As they got closer, she could see he was shirtless and with her eyes cast toward him, she stumbled again. This time she did twist out of his grasp. “Slow down. I can barely see, thanks to your spotlight, and my foot hurts.”

  “Why did you run out here without shoes on?”

  “I was in a hurry to catch you in the act.” She rubbed her arm where his had been, her skin prickly and hot.

  “In the act of what?” Was that humor she heard? If her foot hadn’t already borne the brunt of enough abuse, she might kick him in his ankle.

  “Coming home on your boat.” She still wasn’t convinced he didn’t beat her home and was trying to bluff her. Dangit, she should have checked whether or not the engine was warm. She glanced over her shoulder, but inky darkness hid the path back to the water.

  She’d never been inside of his house. It seemed strange considering how well she knew him. Had known him. She hesitated on the steps up to a side door. He entered first and flipped the overhead light on, the soft glow restoring her sight. She stepped inside his kitchen. It was old-fashioned, but functional and cozy.