Read Online Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance by Sandra Chastain - Free Book Online Page B

blushed and walked over to the window overlooking the lake. Waiting for him to dress, she sat on the sill in the moonlight.
    “Deputy Canyon?”
    He tied the last shoelace and slid his arms into the sleeves of a knit shirt, pulling it over his head as he joined her. “I think we’re past Deputy Canyon and Ms. Wilson, Sarah. My name is Asa.”
    She looked up at him, her face showing a spark of humor. “All right, Asa. I just wanted to point out that nobody is watching now. This isn’t in the line of duty.”
    “It isn’t?”
    “It isn’t.” She kissed him.
    He knew he shouldn’t let it happen. Last night’s first kiss had been a necessary ploy. The second, an accident.
    He groaned.
    This kiss was a crazy wonderful mistakeand he gave in to it with full cooperation and little thought of where it might lead. He had a sudden vision of a beach, a hot summer night, and two lovers, linked together on the sand by some secluded lagoon. The sound of a water creature breaking the surface and falling back into the darkness gave way to the call of a night bird in the distance. It all seemed part of the moment, tied with the touch and feel of the woman in his arms.
    It was the blowing of a car horn that finally broke through his rapture and interrupted their embrace. Asa walked out onto the porch, giving silent thanks to Officer Paul Martin, who was driving up behind Sarah’s van. Behind Paul was Asa’s silver truck, being driven by another blue-uniformed officer.
    “Believe it or not,” Paul called out, “we found your truck parked in the mayor’s space at City Hall. There was a pile of clothes on the seat and a note that said the keys and your gun were under the mat and would we please deliver them to you. So, here we are.”
    “City Hall.” Asa scowled. “That figures. Mike wouldn’t dare leave Silver Girl some place where she would be stolen. Thanks, Martin. I owe you one.”
    The driver of the truck pulled into the space at the corner of the house, slid out, and climbed into the patrol car. Without a comment on the late hour, or Sarah’s presence, Paul gave a thumbs-up salute and drove away.
    Asa looked down at Sarah and realized that her very presence here linked them together,whether or not he wanted it. She’d rescued him, handed over the keys to her van, and made him a part of her softball team, all of which tied them to each other. He worried that even though Smyrna hugged the perimeter of Atlanta, it was still a small town at heart. Members of the inner circle, those whose parents and grandparents had been born here, were still protective of their own. And Sarah was one of theirs.
    He caught her hand. “Let’s go for a walk before I do something to get myself arrested. Deputies aren’t immune from the wrath of a man who believes he’s protecting a woman.”
    “Who? Paul Martin?” Sarah asked, putting her arm around Asa’s waist as they walked across the yard. “He’s just a friend.”
    “I was thinking more about the mayor.” They wandered over to the lake and followed a well-worn path around the moonlit water.
    “Jake Dalton is a friend, too.”
    “I don’t think that’s his choice.”
    “How old are you, Asa?”
    “I’m thirty-five, old enough to know better than to let you make yourself a part of my life under false pretenses.”
    “Good. I like a man who knows what he’s doing, especially when what he’s doing feels so good.”
    “Oh, lady,” he said under his breath, “I think the deputy sheriff is in big trouble.”
    Asa didn’t know how to respond to Sarah’s honesty. She thought he needed her and she came. He knew that he could invite her insidethe cabin and she wouldn’t hesitate, but that would take them one step further in a direction that he wasn’t sure he was ready to go.
    Asa removed her arm from his waist and held her hand, his long fingers loosely threaded through her shorter ones.
    “Sarah, Jeanie called tonight, before you came. I gave her and Mike my