He met her eyes, a wry smile flickering into place. "Don't worry, my feelings aren't that fragile I just don't want to intrude. I took a chance showing up uninvited, and I can tell I'm making you uncomfortable. I hoped this would go a little more smoothly. Sorry I ruined your day."

"It takes a lot more than a speeding ticket to ruin my day." Now it was her turn to smile, even if she sensed he was acting tougher than he really felt. "I'm not seventeen anymore."

She'd cried when she'd gotten her first ticket, which had happened long enough ago to seem funny now.

He nodded. "That's for d.a.m.n sure. Night, Belle."

"I feel like I'm rushing you out you really don't have to go."

"Tell you what: I wrote my number on the card in that bouquet. If you decide you want to get together, give me a call and we can choose a place and time."

She agreed, and in that moment, the years melted away. She couldn't see the man in uniform who'd pulled her over that day, or even the man who'd shown up on her doorstep that night with flowers. She saw Jackson, young and familiar: the man who could nearly stop her inexperienced heart with a look.

She didn't want to say goodnight, but she did, and the moment pa.s.sed.

A near stranger again, he left her alone with the lilies and a restless feeling that stayed with her throughout the night and lingered well past sunrise.

Jackson disliked working traffic. So many bad drivers called the island home or visited from the mainland that writing tickets was like shooting fish in a barrel, especially during the busy summer tourist season. On mornings when he knew he'd be a.s.signed a post monitoring traffic, he stopped at the Tempest Cafe for breakfast.

It was a busy little place built of clapboard they claimed had been salvaged from a wrecked ship more than a century ago. Whether or not that was true, the place had been granted a plaque by the city's historical society, and it swelled with tourists around lunchtime. At a quarter after five in the morning, though, it was nearly empty.

He took his usual seat at the far end of the breakfast counter, where he could easily observe anyone who came and went. He'd barely sat down when a familiar voice called from the kitchen.

"Jackson, my favorite customer." A short twenty-something brunette in a red ap.r.o.n sprang into view, a big smile in place.

Ashley always made it a point to serve him when he stopped in. Only on her days off was he served by anyone else.

She didn't seem to have many days off.

"Morning, Ms. Ca.s.s." He addressed her as he would've anyone else while working, but it only made her giggle and tell him, for the millionth time, to call her Ashley.

"Your usual?" she asked, tapping her pen against her note pad.

He nodded.

"Coming right up." She twirled, her ap.r.o.n strings fanning out behind her, and went to deliver his order to the kitchen.

Within seconds, she was back with a cup of coffee. She set it down on its own, knowing better than to offer sugar or cream.

"Busy lately?" she asked, lingering by his section of the counter.

"Busy enough." He shoved away thoughts of yesterday's wreck, thinking instead of the breakfast he had coming. He could already smell the beignets, hot dough and sugar that tasted like heaven on earth.

"I read that there's more crime in the summertime. It gets hot, and people get crazy."

He took a long sip of his coffee and nodded. It was true enough.

"My uncle had some furniture stolen right off his patio the other day," she said, leaning on the counter. "Maybe you heard about it?"

"Afraid not." He bit his tongue before he could tell her that the South Island PD didn't notify all its officers every time a patio table grew legs.

She shrugged. "Well, at least that's something I don't have to worry about. No patio furniture when you live in an apartment. Of course, there's no point in looking for anything bigger when I live alone."

He drank his coffee, nodding as he watched an elderly man shuffle through the door and take a seat at the other end of the counter.

Ashley had a habit of mentioning that she lived alone, and he had a habit of nodding silently when she did so. He never took her bait, but she never stopped throwing it out there, either.

Moving at half the speed she had when he'd come in, she went to serve the old man.

As soon as she was gone, she disappeared from his thoughts, replaced by the same recollections that'd kept him up half the previous night.

Belle in her car, speeding over the bridge onto the island. Belle in her kitchen, pouring him tea. And most of all, Belle jumping on his d.i.c.k with an enthusiasm that'd belied her inexperience. That had happened years ago, but he'd sooner forget to breathe than forget the details.

Time and distance had forced him to chalk it up to a stroke of sheer dumb luck something to think back on whenever he took his c.o.c.k in his own hand. He'd relished every detail more times than he could count and the years gone by had turned the experience into a fantasy.

One night, and then she'd left. One night of finally caving beneath the pressure of his attraction to her one night he'd remember for the rest of his life, even if he never got to touch her again.

Yesterday, coming face-to-face with her again had forced him to realize that the star of his fantasies was a living, breathing woman still capable of taking his breath away.

G.o.d, she was beautiful. Fifteen minutes in her presence had been enough to a.s.sure him that she still retained her old grace of movement and that those dark, dark eyes hadn't changed a bit.

In the course of a single day, the fantasy he'd turned to so many times in the dark had crept into every waking hour, causing his d.i.c.k to stand at attention at random, inconvenient intervals.

Now, he could only hope she'd call despite the speeding ticket and his awkward appearance at her house.

He was miserably aware that it was a lot to hope for.

"Here you go." Ashley lowered a plate in front of him, forcing him to divide his thoughts between Belle and breakfast.

Not that the food didn't look good. He got the same thing every time: scrambled eggs and bacon with a couple beignets on the side. He liked to save those for last and dip them in his coffee.

"Looks great. Thanks."

She grinned. "Anytime, Jackson. You let me know if you need anything."

She said it as though she was going to go make herself useful elsewhere, but she didn't. Instead, she found things to wipe down and coffee mugs to inspect at his end of the counter.

She put on the same show every time, even though he never left her with anything more than his standard twenty percent tip. He wouldn't have had the heart to tell her if she'd asked, but she excited him about as much as watching paint dry.

It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her. If anything, there was something wrong with him. He always wanted what he couldn't have instead of what came easy.

Right now, that was Belle.

Who the h.e.l.l was he kidding? It had always been Belle.

CHAPTER 3.

"Zackary, you shouldn't have. Really." Belle glanced down at the offering the student worker had placed on her desk. The sandwich wrapped in wax paper might as well have come with ribbon and a greeting card.

"It was no problem. I was there, so..." He shrugged. "I know you like turkey and Swiss."

She reached under her desk for her purse. "How much?"

She knew very well he'd meant the sandwich as a gift, but she wasn't about to let him get away with that. The day she started letting students buy her lunch would be the day she'd start looking for a new job.

"Don't worry about it." He waved a hand, as if he wasn't a student working thirty hours a week in the admissions office to help finance his education.

"Zackary, listen to me." She sat up straight in her office chair and met his gaze, focusing on the widening eyes behind his gla.s.ses. "I remember what it was like to live on a student's budget. You're not buying me lunch. Not today, and not ever. It was a nice gesture, but..."

She pulled out a bill and held it out.

When he made no move to take it, she arched a brow.

"Take it," she said. "Don't make me play the boss card."

With a sigh, he finally took the money.

It wasn't the first time she'd had to remind him she was his boss and not a peer. He was a decent worker when he actually focused on his job, but lately he'd been too busy trying to work his way into her good graces.

At twenty-seven, she was barely his elder. But the years between them might as well have been a lifetime. She hadn't been all that impressed by college guys when she'd been a student herself, and now she felt the same way about them as she had about the neighborhood kids she'd babysat as a teen.

"It only cost seven bucks," he said, staring down at the ten she'd given him.

"You can pay me back later."

His expression brightened. "Or maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee to make it up to you. There's a new cafe down in the student center."

Jesus. What had she done?

"If you ever find yourself bringing coffee for the office, I like mine with two sugars and two creams."

"Oh, right." He pocketed the bill. "Or we could walk down there sometime. Or whatever. Hey, do you still need me to call and check in on the status of that transcript?"

She relaxed a little in her seat, biting back a sigh. "Yes, I do."

"All right. I'll go do that."

He straightened, standing to his full, considerable height. He was tall, but slender in a way that made him seem even younger than he really was. If Belle hadn't known better, she might've thought he was a high schooler.

Sometimes, she felt bad over how blatantly he forced her to shoot him down. There was no telling whether he flirted with her for entertainment or truly thought she might succ.u.mb to his charm.

Hopefully, it was the former. The thought that he might actually be antic.i.p.ating getting into her pants was unsettling.

Of course, just last night, she'd wondered whether Jackson Calder had been antic.i.p.ating the same thing. That look he'd given her...

She'd attributed it to their history, but now she was starting to wonder. Did she give off some kind of f.u.c.k-me vibe so cheap that even college kids picked up on it?

"Let me know when you get an update on that transcript." She turned back to her computer before Zackary could see her frown. "And shut the door behind you, please."

Alone in her office, she unwrapped the sandwich. She'd payed for it, and she might as well eat it. She wasn't a student anymore, but she wasn't exactly a Rockefeller, either.

As she took her unofficial lunch break, it wasn't Zackary who haunted her thoughts, but Jackson. He was all man, no tactless adolescent. The image of him in his South Island PD uniform had been burnt into her mind's eye and a shiver hit her every time she summoned it to memory.

Thinking of him caused a tightening in her core and an ache in her chest she wasn't sure which was more unbearable.

She almost wished she could be as uninhibited and naive as she'd once been and jump into his arms, just for the pleasure of it. But not being taken seriously was a recurring motif in her life, and it'd been the source of so much heartbreak that she finally knew better than to encourage it.

Jackson was the only man who'd never disappointed her, and she wasn't about to offer him the chance.

She'd obviously been a good time for him, and the impression seemed to have weathered the years. He'd made it clear he was interested, but interested in what? Something serious, or another fling?

He'd taken her by surprise last night, and she'd been too fl.u.s.tered to ask. The ball was in her court now if she wanted to see him again, she needed to call. The idea was appealing and intimidating at the same time.

She'd spent so many years putting Jackson up on a pedestal, relishing the memory of their night together, that she didn't want to tarnish it. She didn't like the idea of trying and failing to recapture the magic of it, either.

Her time with him that one night had been pretty much perfect. The romantic experiences she'd had since had been anything but, and the humiliation of her last failed grasp at happiness still stung. She'd never had much luck with love, and she always took the fallout of her attempts hard.

She didn't want it to be that way with the one person who'd made her truly happy, even if it had only been for a night. She wasn't sure she was ready to put herself in the line of fire for more heartache.

Taking a chance with Jackson would be gambling with some of her most precious memories ... and hottest fantasies.

The worst part of being a police officer was responding to calls that reminded Jackson of where he'd come from. At any given time, he was only a 911 call away from a domestic dispute that'd bring the first seventeen years of his life rushing back, threatening to drag him straight through a rift in time and into a cesspool of s.h.i.tty memories.

But he was good at compartmentalizing. He had to be. Whenever he responded to a domestic, disgust would rear its ugly head for a minute until he locked it away and let himself be the man he was instead of the boy he'd once been.

On his way to a domestic on Thursday afternoon, he was already discarding his own emotions in favor of cold professionalism. Still, his MDT screen told him that a woman had called claiming her husband had hit her.

He hated the pieces of s.h.i.t who beat on women and children.

They were all the same, and he would've hated them no matter what, even if he'd grown up behind a white picket fence with a Brady Bunch-type family.

But he hadn't, and that leant a personal element to his hate.

He kept his sirens silent but let his lights flash as he sped through traffic toward the address displayed on the screen. Getting there a minute faster might mean the difference between a bruise or a broken jaw, a concussion or a fractured skull. Even life and death.

Within minutes, he arrived at a stucco ranch house. It was modest, maybe a thousand square feet, but the columned porch looked freshly-painted and potted ferns hung from its rafters. Bra.s.s numbers next to the door told him he had the right address.