I think of all the times I’ve been with him in the forest, and how different he is there. All the times he’s sat out on the back deck at the station, and we joke that he is an outside cat. But it isn’t really a joke. He is that feral cat who’d been brought indoors, and maybe life is easier inside, but he’ll never stop feeling the pull of the wild. But he’ll never quite be able to live out there again, either.

“That’s why the council’s threat is such a big deal, Casey. When I say I couldn’t live down south, I’m not being difficult or stubborn or dramatic. I could not live there. I’d go back into the forest first. But it’s not just the council. What if I meet someone here? Someone I want to be with? Someone from down south, who’ll expect me to go with her after her term’s up, but I can’t, and if she wants me, she has to stay here and live a life that’s as wrong for her as hers is for me.”

“And that’s happened,” I say. “In the past.”

“I met someone, fell madly in love, and then she left and broke my heart?” He snorts a genuine laugh. “Fuck no. Might make a better story. But no. When I was a kid, the women here …” He looks at me. “Maybe this is more than you want to hear?”

I tell him to go on, and then I shift back and motion for him to come sit on the bed with me, and that seems to surprise him, as if maybe I’d want him out of the room, across the town, somewhere far, far away. But he sits beside me, and relaxes against the pile of pillows.

“When I was a kid—teenager, young adult—well, there are women here, obviously, and like you’ve seen, things are different, freer or whatever.”

“Despite the overall lack of women, I suspect there were still some who were happy to teach a young man a few things about sex.”

“Yeah. When you’re a eighteen, nineteen, that’s pretty much heaven. Considering my age, the women never expected more than sex. But then I got older, and they started wanting to help me. Fix me. Like the poor guy who’s never been off the farm, and they’re gonna give him the confidence to get out there and make his way in the world.”

“Which couldn’t be further from what you wanted.”

He nods. “I’d keep it casual, but they’d still start talking about how I could go back south with them, how they’d help me adjust. A few years back, I had a rough time with a woman who misunderstood, so I said fuck this shit. I’ve got more important things to do anyway, with being sheriff now and …” He scratches his chin. “And that’s not what I’m trying to say at all. Where was I?”

“Thinking that the second tequila shot was a bad idea after all?”

A laugh. “No shit, huh? Okay, so … Right. I can’t leave, and I’m not ever going to fit anyone’s definition of normal, and that’s what I meant when I kissed you.”

“Uh-huh.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and gives his head a sharp shake. “Let me untangle that. When I said I didn’t want that kiss to turn into sex, I didn’t mean I didn’t want sex.” He pauses. “That didn’t untangle it at all, did it?”

“Not really.” I sit up a little more. “You don’t need to explain—”

“I’m going to. It just might take some time. Sex, yes. With you, yes. But not like that. Not first-kiss-to-sex in sixty seconds flat, and then that’s it and that was fun and let’s get back to work. That’s what I didn’t want. The way it was going. Where it was leading. Not the sex part but the …” He struggles for a word.

“The casual part.”

“Exactly. Right. Thank you. Yes. That’s not what I wanted with you, and if I start there, how do I go back and say I want more? And, fuck, I can’t want more, because I can’t give more, and if I can’t give more, then it’s not fair to say I want more and …” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “And I really shouldn’t have had that second shot.”

I rise to my knees, ignoring the pain in my leg. Then I lean in and kiss him, just a quick press of the lips.

“Let’s simplify this,” I say when I pull back. “If you’re ever forced to leave Rockton, you’ll go into the forest or you’ll build a new town up here. Not south. Never south. And anyone who wants to be with you has to understand that.” I kiss him again. “I understand that.”

He puts his hands to my cheeks and pulls me in for the sweetest kiss, slow and gentle and hungry, that hunger growing as his arms go around me, and he eases me back onto the bed and—

And I yelp in pain.

Dalton jumps back so fast he drops me, and I let out a hiss, my eyes shut, wincing as pain rips through me.

“Sorry, sorry, fuck—” he begins.

I open my eyes and stop him as he moves in to fuss with me.

“I’m fine,” I say, through my teeth. “Just … I may need more painkillers before we try that again.”

“Or we may need to not try that again until you don’t need painkillers.”

I purse my lips. “No, I’m okay with the painkillers.”

He chuckles and adjusts my pillow, and I pull him down. He resists until he realizes I’m pulling him beside me, not on top, and he stretches out and I ease onto my side, body against his, put my arms around him, and kiss him.

Six

We’re still kissing—very sweet, very careful kisses, keeping the temperature low—when footsteps pound up the stairs, and Dalton’s on his feet, cursing and saying, “I locked the fucking door,” when the bedroom one flies open and Anders stops short.