One More Time Read online

  I’d always loved to create beautiful things for other people, but doing so while also worrying about my relationship with Paul had been a bit of a mess. Now I could do my job and make banners and websites for people without having to worry about any complications like that.

  “Hey, Caleb.”

  I looked up to see Trent standing next to me. “Hi.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin and wanted to invite him to sit down, but the seats around me were full of people eating lunch just like I was. “On break?” I asked instead.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Glad you made it out of your house to come mingle with the townsfolk.”

  I smiled and he smiled back at me. “It’s good food.”

  “Better be. Rosie was my mom.”

  I thought he was joking at first, but he just kept looking at me, and I slowly realized he wasn’t joking at all. “Wow. Uh, congrats.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Trent, we gotta go! Break’s over, kid!” one of the guys with him called.

  Trent turned and waved to them but not before I could see him blushing, maybe at being called a kid. He couldn’t have been that far from my own age of thirty-two, but maybe since the guys with him looked to be in their fifties, that was why they referred to him with that particular appellation.

  “See you around,” I told him.

  He nodded. “Yeah. You will.”

  There was nothing ominous in the way he’d said it, just a simple, yes, I would. Probably because he was a cop and they were pretty active in the small town. He touched my shoulder as he left, nothing too major but enough for me to know he’d done it. I brushed it off, figuring it was a small town and people were probably pretty friendly.

  But after I was done with lunch and spent some time walking around the town, I was thinking about it and wondering why he’d touched me like that. It was hard for me not to wonder, but as I drove back to my new house to tackle the boxes in my living room a few hours later, it started to get easier to forget about the touch and move on.

  I found a picture of my sister and her kids and put it up on my bookcase in the living room, right next to my copy of the biography of Harvey Milk. I had romances galore, a lot of them historicals, under that shelf, but that was where I kept my important stuff. I put a geode next to the book, a small one, barely more than two inches wide, that I’d held on to since the first boy I ever kissed had given it to me. Right before his dad had broken us apart, then moved him to the other side of the country. I’d been thirteen.

  A little jade elephant—a gift from my sister that she’d found in a shop in Thailand well before she met Dan and had the kids—was placed next to her picture. She’d traveled the world while I was getting my degree in design. I’d been jealous of her, but she was just as jealous of me when she went back to school after her travels, only to find out that she was the oldest person in her freshman class. And though some of the teachers liked her, none of the guys in her classes did.

  With my bookshelf done, I had one more box I could recycle in the morning. It was a long drive to the nearest dump that had a recycling center, close to half an hour, but I didn’t want to throw them away, and I couldn’t stand all the clutter. I’d had movers to help me with the big stuff, but I’d gone from an apartment to a huge house and most of my big stuff fit in one room. I’d been sleeping on the fold-out couch in the living room since my futon stopped flipping back up to a couch a few months back, and as I sat down on it and groaned, I realized I really didn’t want to do any more moving, ever. I hated it. Not only was I not fit enough to carry heavy boxes everywhere, but my back hurt from bending over for even a short amount of time. If I wasn’t careful with it, my doctor in LA had told me, I’d throw it out for sure. I needed to find a good chiropractor, and soon, before I wound up on the floor on my stomach, unable to move again like I had in LA.

  I was mostly done unpacking my kitchen when I heard something get knocked over by the garage, which I brushed off without thinking much about it. I really only heard it because I didn’t have on any music. Otherwise the house was completely silent except for me moving things around. I needed to get my TV hooked up right away to fix that. I couldn’t stand the quiet after living for so long in the city.

  But I heard the noise again, and after freezing and wondering where it came from, I walked over to the big windows across from my sofa bed to check if I could see anything outside. I couldn’t exactly see the garage, and even if I could, it was dark out and I didn’t have any outside lights. I had been used to sleeping by the light of an overhead streetlamp across from me that lit up the parking lot where impounded vehicles were taken. I shook my head as I realized, for the first time really, that moving here had not been my smartest idea ever. I didn’t even own a flashlight.

  I heard something coming from the garage again and dug my phone out of my pocket to call 911. I probably should have too, but I pulled out Trent’s card with his number on it, and suddenly I was dialing him while I crouched beside my window and hoped that whoever it was out there hadn’t seen me standing in my living room all alone with the lights on behind me.

  “Hello, this is Trent,” he answered on the third ring.

  “Trent!” I hissed into the phone as I covered it and my mouth with my hand to muffle the sound of my voice. “It’s Caleb—”

  “I know who you are. There aren’t that many people in this town that I can’t remember the voices of. What’s wrong?”

  I heard him getting up, and the sound of a bed squeaking, and I winced, hoping I hadn’t woken him up or interrupted something. It was only nine, but maybe he had to be up early. I wanted to hang up, to tell him I’d only been imagining something being by my garage, but then I thought back to every single horror movie that took place in a cabin in the woods where not one of those stupid kids ever called a cop at the first sign of something going wrong. Well, I had a cop on the phone with me right then, and I wasn’t going to end up hacked into a bunch of little pieces if I could help it. “There’s someone outside my house—”

  “I’ll be right there. Where are you? Are you safe?”

  I couldn’t tell if having him sounding genuinely worried about me was a good thing or not. “I’m in my living room, kneeling on the floor and trying not to be seen.”

  “Good. I’m getting in my car now. I’ll check it out, then come up to the house. Stay on the phone with me.”

  “Okay, okay. I can do that.” Breathing became easier as I relaxed a little bit. Trent was coming, he had a gun, and he would take care of whatever it was. “But what if it’s a bear?” He couldn’t possibly hold off a bear with just a gun.

  He laughed, and I heard the sound of his car as he started driving. “If it’s a bear, we’ve both got big problems.”

  “Well that’s not reassuring at all,” I grumbled.

  “Wasn’t supposed to be. I’m coming down the hill now. I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

  I nodded and licked my lips as I pressed my hand against the cold glass window. “Be careful.”

  “Will do.”

  Chapter Two

  Trent

  I PULLED up to Caleb’s house, which was more like a mansion compared to the rest of the houses in town. We didn’t really have neighborhoods in Thornwood, just the town, and everyone lived in it. But Caleb’s house was on the far east side of it and I lived directly in the center of the townhouses that stood between my mom’s diner and the grocery store. I got a text and glanced down at it before I parked my car in Caleb’s driveway.

  Where’d you go? The bed’s cold.

  I shook my head and sent a quick text back. Neediness didn’t really work for me, as endearing as my current bedmate thought it might be.

  Out on a call.

  There was no text of him telling me to be safe or to be careful or any of that, which didn’t really surprise me. I’d found him on one of those quick hookup sites and was actually kind of surprised he decided to stay for a while after we were done. Most of the time the guys I
brought home didn’t.

  Anyway, couldn’t think about that right then. Caleb had someone by his house, and I was ready to rush in and save him, though I was pretty sure it was nothing. City boy might think we had bears, but I hadn’t seen one around the town in at least a year. Deer on the other hand we had plenty of, elk too. But not bear.

  I went around his house along the path toward the garage that could have easily fit my house inside it. Actually it probably was a barn at one time that someone had converted somewhere along the way. I hadn’t been particularly close to the Smiths, who had owned the property before Caleb, but I did think it was a shame he didn’t have horses in the fields like the Smiths had. I grew up seeing the foals playing each summer in those pastures.

  The area around the garage was dark, which was something Caleb should have probably looked into, and I figured I’d mention it to him at some point. I had my gun out of the holster and held firmly between my hands, but just as I suspected, there was nothing for him to be worried about, just some knocked-over trash cans. No trash was in them, but there was probably the smell of old trash on them and I saw plenty of raccoon paw prints around.

  With a shake of my head, I holstered my gun and went back up the trail to the house. I knocked on the door, waited a little while, then knocked again until I heard Caleb moving around in the house. He had all the lights off but with there being a full moon out and the house mostly made up of big glass windows like in one of those pretty magazines my mom had liked, it wasn’t hard to track his movements inside the house. I even saw when he ran into a box and I heard him cursing as he opened up the front door.

  “Hi, officer,” he said as he pulled the door open. He looked around the house toward the garage, and I turned to look with him.

  “You have raccoons, a few of them probably. Make sure your trash lids are tight, and you’ll be fine, though they may make a mess of things sometimes.” I shrugged. Cleaning up after the raccoons were done was just par for the course as far as I figured. I was born in Denver, but we’d always lived in the mountains. They were home for me, and I was used to seeing more foxes than dogs around town, though we sure had plenty of both.

  “Are they dangerous?” City Boy asked.

  I smiled and shook my head. “Not really. Well, if one bites you, then maybe. It’ll need to be tested, and if it’s rabid, you’ll need to get shots. But you should be fine.”

  He looked instantly more relieved. “Well, that’s great. Yeah. Okay. So, you want to come in for a beer?”

  I shouldn’t have, because I had someone back home waiting on me to come back to bed. But…. Damn, what was his name? Sexyboy83 wasn’t it, though that’s what I’d known him as online. Beard Man wasn’t it either, though he did have one. Whatever. I couldn’t remember his name. And Caleb was offering me a beer. I nodded. “Sure. A beer would be good.”

  “Okay, then.” Caleb stepped aside and I came in. He turned on the lights, and I blinked a few times, getting used to the light, while he fumbled around until he got to the fridge and pulled out some bottles. “I’ve been to the gas station but not the grocery store yet. I have jerky, beer, and that’s about it. I think I’ll be eating at the diner a lot.”

  I laughed and took the beer he handed me. “Yeah, most people do. I’m there most days on my lunch break. It’s the unofficial cop spot, I guess.”

  “Good to know. Note to self: don’t rob the diner,” Caleb said, then nearly dropped his beer, as if he hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

  I laughed and shook my head at his shocked expression. “Yeah, not a good choice of places.” I sat myself on one of the stools that were at the big island and watched him fumble with his words as I drank my beer. My phone went off, and I pulled it out of my pocket to check the text.

  Hey dude, you dead or what?

  Smiling, I sent a quick text back. Yep.

  Fucker.

  I wanted to laugh but instead put my phone back in my pocket. I sure did pick winners to bring home. At least they were just one-night kinds of guys and neither one of us had any sort of expectations. Those were tricky, useless things I didn’t play with anymore.

  “Everything okay?” Caleb asked. “You don’t have to run off to another call or something?”

  I shook my head. “Everything’s good. Just someone saying hi.” I got off the stool and began looking around the kitchen and living room, since I was nosy but also because I wanted to know what kind of a guy bought a massive house far away from any major city, just to have it for himself.

  Growing up, this place—Rocky Creek Stables, as it was once known before the Smiths retired from renting horses to tourists and just bred their horses instead—was somewhere that we kids always wanted to go. There was a horse place down the road, but they were always snobby to us when all we wanted to do was come pet the horses and feed them carrots and apples we saved from the snacks our parents sent us to school with. My mom had thought I suddenly started loving carrots when Mrs. Smith let us come feed the horses, and I asked for extras every day until she caught on.

  Caleb followed me over to a bookshelf that had caught my attention. A picture of a pretty woman stood next to a little elephant statue. “Wife?” I asked.

  “Sister,” he corrected.

  I nodded and kept looking, though I stopped at the biography of someone I’d heard of and also pulled out a romance novel just to confirm. Two guys lay together kissing on the cover. I put it away before turning back to him. “So, you’re gay I take it.”

  He leaned against the wall and took a sip of his beer. “I am.”

  He looked kind of uncomfortable, maybe because he thought I was going to be judging him, but I just grinned. “Well, then, as the only out person I know of in this town, welcome to Thornwood. Your nearest gay bar worth going to is about an hour east of here in Denver, but the traffic typically isn’t all that bad so sometimes you can make it in closer to forty minutes if you’re lucky.”

  “You’re out?” he asked. “And you’re gay?” he added that last part on, though I thought he should have asked it first.

  I nodded. I’d been out since I was a kid.

  “And no one cares?” he continued, as if it were some foreign concept he couldn’t quite grasp.

  “If anyone cared there was a gay cop in town and actually made a fuss, my dad would have something pretty substantial to say about it,” I said as I stepped away from the bookshelf to come join him against the wall.

  “Why? He a mountain mob boss or something?” Caleb joked.

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, but some people might think he is. He’s the chief.”

  Caleb blushed, and I wondered if I could get him to go any darker or if the faint trail of pink over his cheeks that ran down his neck was as dark as he tended to get. Either way, I wanted him. And not just a little bit. I full-on wanted him under me as he lay stretched out over my bed. His dark blond hair was a few inches long, and I wondered how it would look on my pillows and how much his face would flush as I went down on him.

  I was getting hard just thinking about it, but then I felt a bit guilty since I’d had a guy in my bed before coming over. I couldn’t really help being attracted to Caleb, but I could keep from being an asshole by not coming on to him the same night. Plus, I’d known him less than a day. Maybe he had someone waiting to come over to Colorado with him.

  I’d find out sooner or later, because as a cop it was my business to know what was going on in my town. But I wasn’t going to stand here with a hard dick pretending I didn’t want Caleb to get down on his knees for me and make it all better. So I quickly downed the last of my beer, handed him my empty bottle, and then moved toward the front door.

  “Thanks for the drink,” I told him. “Take care, and be wary of strange raccoons.”

  Caleb chuckled and followed me to the door. “Thanks for coming by to check it out for me and making sure I was safe.”

  “Sure thing. Thanks for calling me. Good night.”

  He waved
to me as I went down the trail to my car. I waved to him from beside his SUV and turned on my flashlight so I didn’t trip on my way back to my car. His expired tags would need fixing, but I wouldn’t mention it to him for another month. I still probably wouldn’t give him a ticket, though. In such a small community, we didn’t really like giving out tickets to our neighbors.

  I drove back to my house, one of the little townhomes that stood in a row just off the main street. I could walk to the store, and if I didn’t get a load of groceries, I could get myself just as easily to the diner too. I was pretty low on supplies though, so I’d need to take my car the next time I went. I was expecting to have my house to myself when I got there, but I found the bearded guy still naked, still waiting for me on my bed when I came in the front door. With my bedroom door open I could see him as soon as I crossed over the threshold of my little townhouse. Most of them were at least two bedrooms but I’d gone with the cheapest option.

  “I thought you’d be gone before I got back,” I said as I began taking off my holster and badge and locking them up.

  He got off the bed but didn’t say anything as he started kissing me, and I didn’t mind the silence as he helped me get my clothes off. We were naked again and I was on top of him with his face smashed into the blankets a few minutes later. He moaned, he cried out, he did everything he had before, and I still enjoyed him. But I wished his hair was blonder and he looked more like Caleb.

  I had to close my eyes to come, but he didn’t have that problem as he made a mess of my sheets. I’d be changing them as soon as he was gone. Panting, sweaty, and not nearly as tired as I needed to be in order to get some rest so I could go to work the next morning, I tossed the condom into the trash and started up the shower in the little bathroom just off my bedroom.