All I Want(45)

“Hey.” Parker came up behind her and set her blanket back on her shoulders. “You okay?” He ran his hands up and down her arms, making her realize she was chilly. Then those warm hands compelled her to turn and face him.

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

His fingers lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “Liar.”

“No, really,” she said, and mentally shrugged the call off. “Where were we?”

“Right here,” he said. “With you talking to me.”

“Now who’s lying?”

He sat in the chair and pulled her into his lap, where she blew out a sigh and set her head on his shoulder. “I keep wishing for something that’s never been.” She realized this was probably cryptic, but she knew talking about it wouldn’t change a thing. “Never mind me, it’s silly. Stupid.”

“It’s not either of those things if it’s bugging you,” Parker said.

Something in his voice had her taking a closer look at him. “Your parents forget your birthday and never tell you they love you, too?” she asked.

He let out a low laugh. “They don’t forget my birthday, but yeah, love isn’t a word they throw around very often. My dad’s a miner to the very bone, which is synonymous with tough and impenetrable. Talking about his feelings isn’t his strong suit—unless he’s disagreeing with you on something. Then he doesn’t hold back.”

She’d talked herself into believing that she didn’t want to know about him, what made him tick, what had molded him into the man he’d become, but she really did. She wanted to know more. Hell, she wanted to know everything. “And your mom?”

“She worked in the elementary school’s cafeteria before she retired a few years back,” he said. “She’s very proud of my dad and all his years of hard work. Having a son who not only didn’t want to do the same but yearned for an entirely different life confused her.”

“Did she try to understand?” Zoe asked.

He shrugged. “Not a lot of communication went on. I didn’t want to hurt them, but I knew I had to go. I owed it to myself to at least explore the life I wanted.”

“Were they okay with that?” she asked.

He laughed. “No.”

Her heart squeezed. Five minutes ago she’d had her thighs wrapped tight around his head and been close to singing the Hallelujah chorus, but now all she wanted was to have him keep talking to her forever. “Do you have any siblings?”

“A sister,” he said. “She’s twelve years younger than me.” He smiled grimly. “An ‘oops’ baby that turned into my parents’ entire world.”

“Tell me she didn’t go into the mines,” Zoe said, hoping not.

Parker was quiet for a long beat. “No,” he finally said. “She didn’t.”

Zoe could tell there was a lot more that he wasn’t saying, but he had on that blank face of his, the one that said he didn’t want to discuss it further, and she didn’t know how to push without butting in where she didn’t belong. She clutched the blanket to her, thinking that by now they should’ve been naked on her kitchen floor. The image was hot as hell, because though she wasn’t used to these feelings, there’d been something so freeing about having his hands on her, knowing that they were both in the same place and looking for the same endgame.

An orgasm.

Period. Well, in her case it was more of a comma, with a whole bunch after that, but it didn’t matter. The moment had passed and she knew it. “I should get ready for work,” she said reluctantly. “I’ve got a long day ahead. I won’t be back until late tonight.”

He nodded and gave her a little smile, and damn if she wasn’t sorry that she’d ever answered her phone.





Seventeen




Parker sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, the tabby kitten asleep on his lap and Oreo on his feet. The kitchen floor was in shambles thanks to the crazy gray wild-woman kitten who had attacked a roll of paper towels and spilled Oreo’s food and was currently batting a pen across the floor.

Parker supposed it was fitting. He had a certain brown-eyed brunette currently wreaking such havoc on his life and heart as well. The kitten was just taking after the best.

She batted the pen past the dog.

Oreo, trying to sleep, sighed for the fifth time.

Taking pity on him, Parker grabbed the little terrorist and lifted her to his face to look at her eye to eye.

She batted at his nose.

He laughed. “Nap time, Destructo.” And he dropped her next to her much quieter brother in his lap.

She immediately pounced on her brother with great glee, who opened one eye, gave a mew, and pushed her away.

Not intimidated, she plopped herself down on top of her brother again and began to knead him with her paws like she was making biscuits.

The quiet tabby tolerated the abuse and finally she fell asleep, allowing Parker to work. An hour ago he’d been alerted that the motion detector cams had caught something. He’d accessed the feeds and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

One minute there was a Humvee and the next minute it vanished. Just disappeared into thin air. Parker rewound and slowed things down. This time he could see that the Humvee, colored to blend in, carrying what looked like four men, drove onto the ranch. It was followed by a similarly painted truck, the kind that carries livestock, large livestock, and not all that different from the one that had clipped him with Carver behind the wheel.