Naughty, But Nice

TAG ACTUALLY MANAGED a night of uninterrupted sleep, mostly due to the fact that he’d turned off the ringer on his phone and had shoved his pager beneath the couch pillows.

Not being on call did wonders for his mental health. What hadn’t done wonders for that same mental health had been his dreams.

X-rated dreams about Pleasantville’s latest visitor. He doubted they’d sprung from the photographs in the lingerie catalog he’d received in the mail and had perused over dinner. Photographs that showed every perfect inch of the body that belonged to one Cassie Tremaine Montgomery.

Lord, she was stacked. All long, tanned…lush. With the wild mane of sun-kissed blond hair and come-hither mouth…man, she was sure built like a goddess.

A tempting goddess, for certain. But luckily, not his type. A woman like Cassie was trouble, and on top of that trouble, he imagined she’d be high maintenance.

Tag was done with high maintenance, done with people needing him to take care of every little thing. The next time he let a woman into his life—and there would be a next time—it was going to be for keeps. She was going to be a sweet, quiet little thing who lived for him.

Yeah. He was going to be the high maintenance one for a change.

But as he showered, it wasn’t the quiet little woman that came into his mind. It was Cassie. As in his dream, her cynically lit eyes were hot with passion, her mouth wet from kissing him, and her amazing body wrapped around his. Not only wrapped, but soft and pliant and so ready for him she would explode when he plunged into her.

Now there was an image to make a shower nice and steamy and his body hard and achy. Nothing he couldn’t take care of by himself. But that wasn’t what he was looking for.

Once the hot water turned cold, Tag got out, slipped on his uniform pants, and reluctantly put Cassie out of his mind. Even more reluctantly, he pulled his pager from beneath the couch cushions.

His father had called—again. He’d probably heard about the tri-county arrest, the one in which it had taken the authorities—including Tag—three days to apprehend the suspect. Yeah, ex-sheriff Richard Taggart probably wanted to make sure Tag knew he would have done it in one day.

Well, hell. So he wasn’t like his father. So he didn’t believe he had to bully the town into obeying the law. Hallelujah. But it’d be nice if just once, just one damn time, his father could acknowledge Tag’s success.

Tag ran a hand through his wet hair and bit back a sigh as he strode through his very quiet house to the kitchen, where he poured himself a bowl of cereal.

“Note to self,” he said to no one in particular. “The little wife will make me a hot breakfast every morning.”

Soon as he found her.

The phone rang. Not surprisingly, it was Annie.

“Hey, boss, get your sweet ass up. We’re short-staffed. Turns out Tim didn’t have food poisoning, it was the flu, and half the staff is out.”

“Any bright yellow Porsches out there speeding this morning?” he asked.

“Just one.”

And he was just in the mood for it, too. He slipped into his uniform shirt, grabbed his badge and hit the road.

He found her immediately, cruising downtown, rolling through a four-way stop where he’d cleaned up more accidents than he liked to remember. Pulling her over, he strode up to the driver’s side of her car and had to laugh at the look of fury on her beautiful face.

“Let me guess,” Cassie said through her teeth. “You haven’t met your ticket quota yet for the week.”

“Careful, or I’ll think you like me.” He grinned when she snarled. “Did I mention yesterday that the speed limit is enforced here? As well as the full stop sign, which by the way, means you’re supposed to come to a full stop. It’s a ticket if you don’t.”

She rolled her eyes and tapped her red-lacquered-tipped fingers on the wheel, the picture of impatience. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“You know, you’d get farther with honey than vinegar,” he said, pulling out his ticket book.

“I save the honey for someone who’ll appreciate it.”

Well, she had him there. She could bat her pretty lashes and flirt all she wanted, he was pretty much fed up with the tactic. No way could she bowl him over with those sexy green eyes and walk away. Nope, he was far tougher than that.

Maybe he wasn’t big city. Maybe he had only the badge and his training behind him, but he was his own man and he knew what he wanted.

And okay, he wanted her. He was red-blooded, after all. But a quick affair to let off some steam wasn’t enough for him, not these days. Slumming around no longer appealed. He wanted for keeps. The real deal.

Nothing about Cassie was the real deal.

“Meow.”

This came from the passenger seat, on which sat the biggest, fattest tabby he’d ever seen. “Well, hello,” he said, and when the cat climbed all over Cassie to get to him, obviously using nails for leverage if Cassie’s hiss was any indication, he obliged it by reaching in and scratching beneath the chin.

A loud rumble filled the car.

Cassie narrowed her eyes at the purring cat. “Look at that, the Daughter of Satan likes men. What a surprise.”

“Daughter of Satan?”

She sighed. “Sheriff, meet Miss Priss. Miss Priss meet—” She glared at the cat when it growled at her. “Oh, never mind, you’re so huffy and snooty and rude you don’t deserve an introduction.”

“Funny,” Tag said. “I would have said the same thing about her owner.”

“I don’t own this cat, and I’m never huffy. Snooty and rude, most definitely. But not huffy.”

Despite the fact he didn’t want to acknowledge his dreams hadn’t been as good as seeing her in the flesh, his gaze gobbled her up. She was wearing white today. White tank top, white mini skirt, white leather boots. It seemed almost sacrilegious, all that virginal color on that mouth-watering body. Down, boy. “Why doesn’t your cat like you?”

“It’s not my cat, it’s my mother’s. Apparently they frown on felines on cruise ships, so she left the thing for me to take care of, along with—” She sent him a look designed to wither. “Why am I telling you all this?”

“Because I’m irresistible?”

For one moment she let her guard down and laughed. Her entire face softened, and he stared at her in shock. My God, she was beautiful like that, he thought, and wondered what it would be like to see her happy, really happy.

But then he took back the thought. He didn’t care what she looked like happy; he’d prefer to see what she looked like from the back, heading right out of town. “Let me guess…you’re on your way out of here.”

Now her frown was back, on those perfectly glossed lips. “I wish.” She flipped her hair out of her eyes and lifted a shoulder. “I think you might be stuck with me a little bit longer. Hope you can handle it.”

“The question is, can your car insurance handle it.” He opened his ticket book and she sputtered, making him laugh again. “Why do I get the feeling that not many have crossed you?”

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t care?” she muttered.

When he’d handed her the second ticket in as many days, she grabbed it, tossed it over her shoulder into the back of her car and took off, her hair flying in the wind, her cat back in the passenger seat. The two of them were frowning, two obnoxious females thrusting their chins out against the world.

HONEY, do what you got to do. The blazes with anyone else. Cassie heard Flo’s voice in her head clear as day. More rarely she heard Edie’s voice, Kate’s mother, and for all intents and purposes Cassie’s Mom No. 2. It seemed Cassie’s bold-as-brass lifestyle leaned more toward Flo’s advice than Edie’s.

She wondered if hearing voices meant she was going crazy, or just that Pleasantville was getting to her. Both, she decided, and stripped out of her clothes, fingering through the things she’d brought, looking for some comfy pajamas.

She was a clothes hound and, thanks to her job, had collected many beautiful things. They were a comfort to her, the silk and lace, and proved, if only to herself, she was no longer poor.