Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(30)

He turned his attention to the tiny ball of fuzz at the top of the tree, who looked back, all puffed fur and bad attitude. She could see Jonah gauging the distance, then he looked at all five feet four of her and his face went hard. “Don’t tell me you are climbing up there.”

“Are you crazy? No way.” She waited until he relaxed before adding, “Just far enough up so that he can smell the chicken.”

Her mom used to say the best way to attract bees was with honey. Shay knew, for cats, it was all about the chicken.

And for a male, well, that was about making them believe the chicken was their idea.

“Unless you have a better suggestion.”



“Now what?” Jonah asked, wanting to kick himself. One bat of those chocolate-brown eyes and he was practically offering to help her commit a crime—like adding one more pet to her collection.

“I think this is where you say you’re going to arrest me.”

He looked down at his jeans and T-shirt and felt a sigh of relief, because, no, he wasn’t going to arrest her. Tonight that was some other *’s job.

“I’m off duty,” he said, liking how that sounded.

She stared at him as though he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. Jonah didn’t like the idea of looking the other way, but figured if he wasn’t on the clock then he wasn’t slacking on his duties. So he’d clocked out early, locked up his gun and badge, and made a point to leave his job at the office.

“But you’re never off duty.”

A problem he intended on fixing—starting tonight. Sheriff Bryant was right. Going into a new position already burnt out wouldn’t do anyone any good. Just like arresting Shay for saving a stupid cat.

Plus he had a rough few days ahead of him, this he knew without a doubt. One week a year it was as though he was forced to relive it all, remember a time he’d give anything to forget. And since that week started tomorrow, he wanted to forget about everything tonight—and he’d found his perfect distraction.

“I am right now,” he said and she smiled, warm and real and just for him, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Does that mean no lecture about bringing another cat into my house?”

“Would it make a difference if I did?” She remained silent and he laughed. “Then no. No lecture. Off duty, remember?”

“Well then, Jonah.” Man, he loved it when she called him by his given name. “Now we sit and wait.”

Shay leaned back in the grass and made herself right at home, stretching out her lush legs, crossing them at the ankles as though she had every right to be there.

Jonah had to admit that trespassing looked good on her. Her hair was a mess of curls, her face smudged with dirt, even the tree rash on her shin looked good on her, in that tough-girl I-can-handle-myself way. But there was something about the way she was looking at him right then, with reluctant gratitude and a shy hopefulness, that had him tied in knots.

“We can wait all night, Trouble, but I don’t think that cat has any intention of coming down.” Just like he didn’t have any intention of leaving Shay alone—and not just because he didn’t trust her not to climb the tree the second she got impatient. There was something fragile about her tonight, a vulnerability that he’d bet the last half of that sandwich she had no idea she was showing. Because Shay didn’t do vulnerable.

He’d spent the past year watching her take on one hopeless mission after another, never giving up and always managing to come out on top. No matter what. It was a testament to just how strong she was. But tonight she was showing a crack in her armor—and he wanted to know why. So he sat down next to her.

With a smile that damn near stopped his heart, she handed him his sandwich, then went back to watching her cat. Jonah took a big bite and handed it back.

She stared at it as though it were a ticking bomb.

“I didn’t poison it, I promise,” he said when she still wouldn’t take it.

“Sharing a sandwich doesn’t make this a date,” she clarified, and Jonah couldn’t figure out if she was telling him a date was out of the question or if she was mad because he hadn’t asked her out the other night. Then she eyed him suspiciously and said, “So don’t think this is going anywhere.”

Ah, she was talking about the kiss, the one they weren’t allowed to talk about according to her rules. “Thanks for clearing that up, I was afraid Kitty Fantastic might get the wrong impression of the kind of guy I am.”

She snorted but took the sandwich.

He didn’t know how much time passed, and for the first time in months didn’t care. He just sat as the sun finally disappeared behind the mountains, silently passing a sandwich back and forth with the most complicated women he’d ever met, and yet around her everything seemed simple. Comfortable. Never once thinking there was somewhere else he’d rather be.

When the last bit of light disappeared and the only part of the kitten visible were its eyes glowing against the moon, Shay wrapped her arms around her bent knees and hugged them to her.

“I don’t think the cat is into chicken bacon clubs,” he said.

“Every man is into bacon. It’s one of the three sacred Bs men agree on,” she argued. “Bacon, beer, and ball.”

She was right; bacon, beer, and ball were all part of the bro code, but he added, “I can think of another B that ranks even higher.”