Last First Kiss by Lia Riley Read Free Book Online

what she was, not a pioneer babe or a perfectly orchestrated photograph, nothing but fleeting entertainment, easily deleted. Her tears fell in utter silence as she returned her gaze to the empty road. She knew how to do that, had a PhD in Muted Grief.
    A red light flashed in the rear view. A siren blared.
    Crap.
    That was a stop sign back there. She blew through the quiet crossroads without even tapping her brakes. The same way she’d been living these last days and months. Keep going, keep moving, and get through it.
    She had her license and registration out by the time the officer sauntered to the driver’s side window and bent down.
    No freaking way. Her mouth gaped, she blinked, but yep, he was still there. Sawyer Kane dressed in a beige and green uniform, his lean hips encased by a black leather holster. A trapdoor opened in her stomach as she met his fixed gaze and prayed for a little mercy.

 
    Chapter Five
    S AWYER GAZED THROUGH the driver’s window. Aw, hell.
    “It’s you.” Annie removed her oversized sunglasses, her eyes suspiciously shiny. At first glance they were an ordinary blue, but look deeper and they held the same color gradient of a mountain lake, light on the outer ring with indigo encircling the center.
    His ex-fiancé favored silk and lace, but Annie’s Lewis and Clark College hoodie and denim cut-offs were a form of temptation all on their own. Conjured an image of lazy weekend mornings, cooking a late breakfast, sleeping in, or better yet, not sleeping at all. The thought lasted only a moment, because a skinny, bespectacled boy regarded him from a booster in the backseat—wearing a pink shirt and color-coordinated cast.
    Sawyer hid his start of surprise, just. Where’d the kid come from?
    “You’re a cop?” Her gaze ping-ponged back and forth from his badge to his holster. “But . . . earlier when I threatened to call the police on your grandma . . . I didn’t . . . you didn’t—”
    “License and registration, please.” Easier to stick to the rulebook while deciding how to play this. Discovering Annie Carson drove the stop sign–running purple hybrid with the bumper stickers “I’m straight, but maybe it’s a phase” and “This is what a feminist looks like” threw him for a loop. Realizing the boy was her dead ringer took him on a disorienting ride around a corkscrew roller coaster. He was her son. Annie was a mother.
    Guess she still had a knack for surprising him.
    That was an unexpected complication he hadn’t considered. He didn’t know the first thing about kids.
    She handed over the documents and as their fingers grazed, nerve endings tingled as his ribs contracted a good inch. She still had a knack for doing that too.
    “This is my sister’s car. The registration’s in Claire’s name. She’s letting me borrow it.”
    He studied her license photo, refocusing. “Portland.” So that was where she’d run off to. People talked, said she’d gotten a scholarship to a fancy college in the Northwest, but no one was ever sure where. If she’d been back to visit the farm, he’d never seen any evidence. “You liked living in Oregon?”
    “It’s greener than here. Close to the ocean.” Her gaze darted in any direction that wasn’t his as she drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel.
    “Did you ever miss Brightwater?” he asked softly. Me?
    She shrugged, clearly not wanting to talk more than necessary. “Should I?”
    He tipped back his hat. He didn’t care. He’d missed her. “This is your home.”
    “My home?” There was that smile again, the one that didn’t reach her eyes. “This valley is beautiful and it’s probably a wonderful town to settle down in if you’re part of the ‘in’ crowd. But I wouldn’t know, would I?” She shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t snap. It’s been one heck of a morning.”
    “What can I do to help?”
    “Nothing.” She bit her lower lip, but not before it gave a tell-tale