Read Online Saving the Sheriff: A Three River Ranch Novella (Entangled Bliss) by Roxanne Snopek - Free Book Online Page B

flexed and shifted, lean and lithe and lovely. Nipples tight with cold budded beneath the nubbly weave, making his fingers itch to reach out and touch.
    He hit the edge of the dish on the counter, spilling a few kibbles. Instead of leaping on them, the dog looked at Frankie, as if asking permission.
    “Go ahead, honey. It’s your supper.”
    The mutt inhaled the food on the floor, then turned to the dish Red had prepared, as if he wasn’t there. Instead, Frankie was rewarded with a smile of adoration from those massive crunching jaws.
    She laughed. “Don’t take it personally.”
    “Kind of hard not to.” He lit the candles on the table. The last thing he wanted was a rerun of her panic attack.
    “I’m a stand-in for Rory, that’s all. I feel sorry for Mistral. She’s lonely.”
    “Lonely.”
    “Yeah, you know, wishing you weren’t alone? Feeling sad because someone you cared for was gone? I guess she recognized a kindred spirit.”
    “You? You don’t seem like a lonely person.”
    “My mom always told me that to get a friend, you have to be a friend. But what I wanted was a sister. Still do, I suppose.”
    Frankie’s easy admission speared him in the chest. Another tender gift. Didn’t she know how vulnerable this made her? How much it would hurt when someone found that soft spot and dug in, just for the sake of causing pain? She cultivated such a strong, independent image, yet there was this other side of her too, and her ease with it baffled him.
    “You’d be one also, but you haven’t faced your own loneliness yet.” She opened a couple of cans and dumped the contents into a pot. “Hence the Scrooge-ness.”
    Red sat at the table and stared into the flickering candlelight. There it was again. Against all logic, he felt a pang of envy. He imagined his loneliness as a yawning void inside, one he kept carefully contained, lest he fall in and be destroyed.
    He imagined Frankie opening hers and laughing into the depths, just to hear the echo.
    “You may have a point,” he said, as if it were no big deal, as if facing the hurt could actually ease the ache.
    “So.” She stirred the pot without looking at him, then flicked the starter on the propane stove. “Remember that scene in Lethal Weapon , where Rene Russo and Mel Gibson are comparing scars?”
    The scene flashed into his mind, the teasing and flirting, clothing lifted or discarded, skin revealed by turns, the competition heightening the tension between them.
    “It’s a good scene. You have something in mind?”
    She continued stirring and he watched, spellbound. He could still feel her lips against his, taste the sweetness of her mouth. If it ended for him like it had for Mel, he wasn’t about to complain.
    Then she looked up, catching him. She arched one eyebrow. “I’ve shown you mine.”
    “No, you haven’t.” He got up and stood near her. “I’ll be happy to look though.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Emotional scars. Not physical.”
    He blinked. “I don’t have any emotional scars.”
    “The Scrooge-ness would indicate otherwise,” she said with a wry smile. “Spill.”
    “Oh. Well.” It was only fair. She’d revealed her soft underbelly. He forced out the next words. “First Christmas after my divorce, that’s all.”
    Frankie lifted her gaze. “I’m sorry.” Oddly, the syrupy words that usually made him grit his teeth were different from her lips. He’d heard them so often—usually by people who claimed to be friends but ended up siding with Kayla—he’d learned to tune them out.
    But from Frankie they sounded honest.
    Her face grew soft and as their eyes locked, he felt something soothing wash over him, something healing, something he’d been desperate for.
    “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “It’s for the best. She’s a singer, got her chance to make it big in Nashville. I was going to go with her. Turned out, she wanted to go alone.”
    He gave a little laugh and was gratified to see Frankie return it.