Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(69)

With Shay, he wanted everything.





So you’re not even going to read what I drove all that way for?” Shay asked, looking up at Jonah through her lashes. She was lying on top of him, her arms folded on his chest, and he was making amazing circles down her spine with his fingers.

“Nope,” he said with a grin. “And batting your lashes doesn’t work. Ask the cat.”

The cat Jonah referred to was curled on the pillow between the file and them. Staring.

“What if I make it worth your while?” she purred, giving his chest a bite.

“Not even then. And before you start sinking your teeth in—ow!” He smacked her butt. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.” Although now he was rubbing where he smacked, and focusing on much else was difficult.

“I don’t need to read it because I already know everything I need to,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. And with an answer like that, how could she be mad? But she was. She’d gone through a lot to get that file and she wanted him to read it.

The truth was she wanted to make sure he believed her. And that file validated her story. Shay wanted to believe she had overcome her childhood need to be validated, but she had the overwhelming urge to prove to Jonah that she wasn’t what her police report said. That she was more than a difficult and temperamental transient thief who bucked the system. Yes, she wrote that check, and yes she knew it was wrong, but her mother’s ring was all she had left of her family. Lance had taken everything else. She wouldn’t let him take her ring.

“You’re not going to let this go,” he said, letting out a long-suffering sigh, then craned his neck to kiss the tip of her nose. “All right, if it will stop you from frowning, you can give me the high points.”

“I’m not frowning.” But she was. Relaxing her face, she said, “It’s a copy of the transcript from my trial. At the end, the Honorable Judge Lipmann only fined me one dollar.”

She saw the surprise in Jonah’s face. “One buck?”

“Yup.” She smiled. “He said he would like to throw the whole case out because Lance is a dickwad of the most extreme kind.”

“He said dickwad in a court hearing?” Jonah reached for the file. “Let me see.”

“I’m paraphrasing. Creative license applies.” Shay yanked it out of his hands and put it behind her back, which had all of her weight resting down on him—and the man was ready to go again. “Can I continue?”

He ran his palms to her butt and pulled her against him. “Make it fast.”

“The dollar part was real. He also let me keep the ring, I just had to pay Lance back for the amount of the check, unless I chose to press countercharges, which I did not.” She’d just wanted the whole thing to be over so she could move to a new town—and move on. “He said he wished he could throw the whole case out, but I did write a hot check and tried to pass it off as mine. So he was stuck.”

“And Lance?”

“Off living his life, I guess.”

“I’m sorry, Shay,” he whispered with so much sincerity she felt her heart sigh.

“It’s okay.” Holding on to bad things made it impossible to find happiness, so in order to move on Shay had learned to let go. And now she was here. In a town that might just be home with a man she was pretty sure she had fallen in love with.

Mew. Kitty Fantastic stretched out a paw so that it barely touched Jonah’s biceps.

“Is it always like this?” he asked and Shay wanted to say no, that she’d never felt like this before. Ever. But she knew he was talking about their audience.

“I find it odd that a man who claims to dislike cats as much as you do owns a cat tower.”

“Yeah, I’d been hoping you’d miss that,” he said and she laughed.

No one could miss the Towering Tree Bungalow next to his dresser, with all seven feet of carpeted kitty hideouts, a trapeze, and spinning play circle. The only one who seemed to have looked right past it was Kitty Fantastic, who seemed to prefer Jonah’s bed to the Harmony Hammock.

“It was either that or accept my recliner is nothing more than a glorified scratching post, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

“That’s so—”

“If you say sweet,” he warned, smacking her butt again, this time a little harder, “I will pull out the cuffs.”

A zing of heat shot through her body at the threat. Who knew bossy Jonah could be such a turn-on?

Flashing a wicked smile, Shay leaned up to kiss him, making damn sure that her breasts were grazing his chest, and their other parts were properly aligned. “You, Jonah Baudouin, are a closeted cat lover.” She kissed his nose. Then his jaw. “And I think that is about the sweetest thing ever.”

Then before he could move, she rolled off of him onto her back. Lifting her hands to the headboard, she crossed them at the wrists. “Is this the position you wanted me to assume, Sheriff? Or did you have something else in mind?”



The sun was high and a cool breeze kicked down Main Street, rustling the leaves of the maple trees and the big GET GLAM AND GET WALKING sign that hung between the marble columns of town hall. Shay sat behind a table, wearing her favorite mossy-green sundress and a neon-orange boa—compliments of the Boulder Holder—and watched as, one by one, pets and their owners lined the sidewalk. They were decked out in their finest attire. It was a sea of studded leashes, faux-fur collars, and critter couture as far as the eye could see.