The Chance (Thunder Point #4)(64)

“Pour me a little of that wine, will you?”

“Walking on the wild side tonight?” she asked. She poured a small amount into a glass and handed it to him.

“Not very wild—I have the tow business tonight. This looks awesome.” He ran a cracker through the dip and chased it with a sip of red wine.

“My food preparation really lights your fire. I think in an earlier life you liked to drag your woolly mammoth home to the cave for your woman to butcher and roast.”

“And then she tanned the hide and made me pants.” He chewed a couple of grapes. “What have you been doing tonight?”

“Mostly watching the show,” she said, pointing her wine toward the sliding glass doors. “It’s the first really good one since I moved here.”

“Well, it gets better and more frequent through summer,” he told her. “We’re going to spend a lot of time on the deck.”

“And in bed,” she said, taking a grape and sip of wine.

“Storms or not,” he said.

They leaned back against the pillows and headboard of the bed, tray between them, and watched the fury over the bay. Sometimes, when the lightning was close, the noise was so deafening they both jumped in surprise. When the lightning struck one of the big rocks in the bay, they shouted in excitement as if they were kids at a fireworks display.

And then the rain began in earnest and Laine moved the tray, put her wineglass on the bedside table and curled up against him. The lightning became flashes behind clouds while the wind blew the rain against the windows.

“If you had told me five years ago that one day I’d have this kind of life, I never would have believed it,” Eric said.

“You mean ‘stable’?” she asked.

“Once I got prison out of the way, stability became my middle name. It was a priority. I didn’t make too many fast moves—I liked the no-drama zone a lot. But I was sometimes overworked and pretty often bored. No, I didn’t know I’d be working on my second business, that I’d be a father to a wonderful girl, that I’d be laying in bed with the most incredible woman I’ve ever met....”

“Well, does it come as any surprise that I didn’t see you in my astrological charts, either? I thought I’d spend half my life investigating, establishing probable cause, and the other half undercover or in court. And then there’s the paperwork...”

“Is this life getting too dull for you?”

She shook her head. “This is the best I’ve felt since my mom passed away. I wish I’d had my aura read or something—I bet it was spikey and black and nervous before.” She turned her head and looked up at him. “I bet it’s all soft pink and lavender now. I was all about controlling the stress before. I think you sucked the stress right out of me.”

“Me?” he asked.

“You and a couple of other things. Some healthy distance from Senior helped. A second look at the commune, disarmed. And I don’t know what’s different about this place but the people are... They’re nice. They let me in. I didn’t realize how few women I had in my life. Well, I realized it, but I didn’t know I could do anything about it. I didn’t know what kind of friendship I was missing.”

“Were there just men in your life?”

“Not what you think. I worked with mostly men and the women I had grown close to were more mentors than girlfriends. I don’t have to prove myself to these people, to these women, and it’s different. I can tell you something that might scare you to death.”

“I’ve learned to be very brave where you’re concerned....”

“I’m going to resign from the FBI this week. I like my new life. I like being here, being with you. I’ve gotten a little lazy....”

“That last assignment took a lot out of you,” he said. “Another few months like this and you could be ready for your edgy life again.”

“What if I’m not?” she asked.

“And what if I’m not enough?” he asked her.

“Eric, you’re not under any pressure, please believe that. My expectations of you are the same as they’ve been from the start—just having you in my life is enough.”

He slid an arm around her and pulled her on top of him. She was stretched out over the length of him. He pulled her mouth onto his while thunder rumbled over them. He kissed her deeply. When he let her go he said, “Don’t tease me. You know you’re all I want.”

* * *

When the rain was driving inland over the bay, Hank Cooper grabbed his rain slicker and flashlight and went outside through the back door of the bar. He crossed the parking lot and shone the light on the path that would soon be a stone sidewalk. He braced a foot on the raised floor of the structure that would be his house and pulled himself up and inside. He pointed the flashlight toward the large open room in the front of the house. Sarah sat on a stack of two paint cans, looking out the glassless window at the storm. Her growing middle seemed to be precariously balanced over her thighs.

“I wish you wouldn’t prowl around over here in the dark,” he said.

“I wanted to check out the storm, see what we’d see from the great room.”

“Sarah, what if you tripped over construction debris and fell?”

“I’d bounce,” she said.