At Last (Lucky Harbor) Read online

  “Visiting friends.”

  He sighed. This conversation was like running in circles. “What friends?”

  “I watch all the cop shows, you know.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Christ. “Fine.” He gestured back to his truck. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait—What?” Her eyes got huge, and she scrambled back a few feet. “You can’t arrest me.”

  “Have you done something arrest worthy?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’re not getting arrested. I’m driving you into town. To your friends.” And then he planned to call his friend Sheriff Sawyer Thompson to run her ID to see if she was a person of interest or reported as missing.

  She looked away. “I don’t need a ride.”

  “You’re not sleeping out here tonight. Get in the truck.”

  She threw her backpack into the truck bed with enough attitude to give him a starter headache. Then she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  Matt drew a deep breath and walked around to the driver’s side. He drove her attitude-ridden ass into town, wondering what it was with him and stubborn females this week.

  In the heavy silence of the truck cab, Riley’s stomach grumbled. She ignored both it and Matt, keeping her face firmly turned toward the window. But by the time they drove down the main drag of Lucky Harbor, her stomach was louder than the venomous thoughts she was sending his way.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Here’s fine.”

  Here was the corner where the pier met the beach. “Your friends live on the pier?” he asked dryly.

  “I’ll walk to their place.” Her stomach cut her off with yet another loud rumble.

  Matt sighed and pulled into the pier parking lot.

  Riley immediately reached for the door handle but Matt gripped the back of her sweatshirt. “Not so fast.”

  She stiffened. “I’m not thanking you for the ride with anything that involves me losing my clothes.”

  Jesus, he thought, his gut squeezing hard. “I’m not looking for a thank-you at all, but I’m not dropping you off on the damn corner. I’m taking you into the diner to feed you.”

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because you’re hungry. And no,” he said before she could speak again. “I don’t expect a thank-you for that either.”

  Like a cornered, injured, starving animal, she didn’t so much as blink, and he felt the punch of her mistrust more forcibly than he’d felt Ty’s right uppercut this morning.

  “I don’t have any money,” she finally said.

  “You’re not going to need any.”

  This produced another long, unblinking stare.

  In the silence, his own belly grumbled. “Let’s go.”

  Her eyes swiveled to the diner on the pier’s corner. “What kind of place is called Eat Me?” she asked, unwittingly cementing what he’d suspected all along.

  If she hadn’t known the name of the only diner in Lucky Harbor, she hadn’t come from town. She didn’t belong here any more than she’d belonged out on the mountain. And he knew what that likely meant, he’d seen it all too often in Chicago. Homeless teens, a rising phenomenon that no one had yet come up with a solution for. She was either a runaway, abandoned, or a juvenile delinquent dodging the authorities. “The food’s good,” he said. “And I’m starving. So are you.”

  The girl seemed to fold in on herself. “I’m not cleaned up good enough for a fancy place like that.”

  Eat Me was just about the furthest thing from fancy he’d ever seen, but he gave her a cursory once-over. “You look fine.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Riley.”

  She slammed out of his truck and grabbed her backpack, hugging it tight to herself.

  Matt almost told her to stop abusing his door but he thought back to all the times his dad had yelled at him for doing the same thing and kept his mouth shut. He refused to turn into his father. Not that there was anything wrong with his dad’s parenting skills, but it was unnerving to hear himself become that guy.

  As he opened the diner’s door for her, he said, “The waitress is a friend of mine. Be nice.”

  “Friend or friend?”

  Ignoring that, he nudged her to a booth, not happy that under the harsh fluorescent lighting, he could see a fist-sized bruise on her jaw.

  Amy was several tables down, serving from a large tray and clearly babying her wrapped wrist. She was wearing a black sundress with her kick-ass boots, topped off by the ever-present pink Eat Me apron. Just looking at her short-circuited his brain.

  She turned her head and met his gaze, revealing nothing. She was good at that, too good. But two minutes later, she came by their booth with two sodas, and Matt smiled at her.

  Amy didn’t return the smile but her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he knew she was thinking of their last kiss up against her door.

  Worked for him, since he’d pretty much done nothing but.

  Riley picked up the tension between them, Matt’s smile and Amy’s lack of, and cracked a small snarky smile. “Thought you said she was your girlfriend,” she said to Matt. “She doesn’t appear to like you much.”

  Amy gave Matt a long look.

  Matt didn’t bother to sigh. “Thanks,” he said to Riley. “Thanks a lot.”

  The girl flashed her first real smile.

  Not Amy. Her eyes narrowed in on Riley like a hawk. “Hey, you’re the one who was watching me through the bushes on the mountain.”

  Chapter 7

  Chocolate does a body good.

  Amy couldn’t believe it. She stared at the teenager who was still wearing the blue sweatshirt. Her face was dirtier than it’d been the other day, and her eyes were bright with false bravado and pride. Behind that lurked fear, plain and simple. There was a bruise on her jaw, too. Someone had hit her, and at that knowledge, Amy’s gut squeezed.

  “Amy, this is Riley. Riley, Amy.” Matt met Amy’s gaze. “Riley’s hungry, and I’m my usual starving.”

  “No problem.” Amy set a menu in front of the squirming, skinny Riley. She hadn’t bothered to bring one to Matt. He knew everything they served.

  Matt tapped on Riley’s menu. “Whatever you want.” Then he rose, and moving with his usual quick efficiency, took Amy’s arm in a firm grip. “A minute?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him she was swamped, but he met her gaze and she saw something in his—exhaustion. She let him direct her into the back hallway just outside the bathrooms. “You okay?” she asked.

  There was a beat of surprise from him, then finally, he nodded. He was either fine or he didn’t want to discuss it. “What is she doing here with you?”

  He didn’t answer the question, and by the way he was looking at her, she knew that wasn’t what he’d brought her back here to discuss. She had no idea what that might be.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.

  Not expecting that, or the punch of emotion the words brought, Amy stared into his light brown eyes. He hadn’t even touched her, and that now familiar zing ran through her, from the very roots of her hair to her toes, and then straight back to every erogenous zone she owned—of which there appeared to be more than she remembered.

  Not appearing to be bothered by the zing in the least, Matt put his hands on her hips and gently bumped her back a step, up against the wall.

  Not only wasn’t he bothered, she could feel that he liked the zing.

  A lot.

  There was nobody else in the hallway, so when he leaned in and kissed her, no one heard her soft murmur of surprise.

  And arousal.

  He gave her no tongue, nothing but his firm, warm lips, but the kiss wasn’t sweet, not by a long shot. Nope, this kiss had purpose, and that purpose was to remind her exactly how explosive their chemistry was. In that moment, there was nowhere else she’d rather be, and she showed him by pressing close and deepening the kiss.