Shit, he knew the answer to that without even putting his mind in gear. Two months ago, he’d have laughed at anyone who suggested he’d be this attracted and confused and crazy over a woman. But he felt like he was in a fucking tailspin. When he got a call from dispatch, he jumped on his radio so fast he nearly spilled his soda. Used to eating on the road, he grabbed the second half of his burger and ordered himself not to look over at Chloe as he exited the diner.

But he totally looked.

She smiled and waved as if she were truly happy to see him, and his dumb-ass heart lightened. It took some effort to stop picturing her face as he drove to Delilah Goldstein’s house. Delilah was eighty-nine, and alone, and once in a while she called in odd reports to 9-1-1. Lucille had adopted her into her posse, but Delilah wasn’t as mobile as the other blue-haired hellions that Lucille hung out with.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Goldstein?” Sawyer asked when he stood on her porch.

She peered at him through the screen. “Sawyer? Is that you, dear? Have you been playing doorbell ditch again?”

He bit back his sigh. “No, ma’am. Not in about twenty-five years. I’m a sheriff now, remember? You called in that you needed help.”

“Yes, I do need help. I keep hearing Frank Sinatra singing through my TV when it’s turned off.”

Sawyer paused a beat, then glanced through the screen into her living room. Her TV was definitely off. “Huh.” He scratched his chin. He’d seen and heard it all, or so he thought. But this was a new one even for him.

He walked into her living room and squatted in front of the TV, which was at least fifteen years old. The surface didn’t have a spec of dust on it, which took a definite talent. But he wasn’t hearing any Frank Sinatra. “Do you like Frank Sinatra?” he finally asked Mrs. Goldstein.

“Oh yes, of course. My Stan-God bless his soul-loved Frank. We used to listen to him every afternoon at this time of day. Sometimes we’d dance in the living room.” She sighed, the sound an expression of grief as she pressed her hand to her mouth.

To give her a minute, Sawyer made a pretense of checking out the back of the TV, but Christ, sometimes this job sucked golf balls.

“Why do you think it happens?” she whispered. “Do you think it’s Stan’s ghost, or Frank’s? Because as fond as I am of Frank’s music, I don’t want him here in my house, watching me. It feels…scary.”

Sawyer straightened and looked her right in the eyes. “It’s Stan,” he said. “Not Frank.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. And I think that you should just enjoy the music, Mrs. Goldstein. Don’t be afraid.”

She smiled at him, her voice tremulous. “You’re a good man, Sheriff.”

At least she hadn’t said sweet.

She made him stay for coffee and a brownie. “Are you ever going to corral in that wild child Chloe Traeger and marry her?” she asked, bagging up a brownie for him to take with him.

He was so thrown by this question that he just stared at her.

“I only ask because Chloe comes over when I get the headaches. She massages my temples with this fantastic homemade balm she creates. It’s wonderful. She’s wonderful. She’d make such a great sheriff’s wife.”

Chloe, a wife? The mere thought should’ve made him laugh, but it didn’t.

He knew better. Chloe had to be free to do as she wanted; it wasn’t in her nature to be “corralled.” And it wasn’t in his to try to do so. “I’m not exactly marriage material myself, Mrs. Goldstein.”

“Oh, hogwash. That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. You young people have no sense of romance. Why, in my day, if you wanted a girl, you went after her. You made her yours.”

Yeah, and wouldn’t that go over well with Chloe. She just loved it when someone told her what to do. Sawyer moved to the door. “Have a good day, Mrs. Goldstein.”

“Don’t you mean ‘mind my own business’?”

Sawyer grimaced, and she laughed. “Listen, dear. I’m old, and probably far too sentimental, but I’m not dead. Not yet. Don’t close yourself off to what could be. Or when you’re as old as I am, what will be coming out of your TV?”

Metallica sounded good to him.

It was late afternoon, and he was on the road when he got the call that the convenience store that had been robbed several weeks back had set off their alarm again. He raced over there, lights and sirens blaring, to find the owner and the clerk standing outside waiting for him. When Sawyer got out of his SUV, the owner looked at his watch. “Wow, seven minutes,” he said, sounding impressed. He smiled at Sawyer. “We just had a new alarm system installed, and this was our dry run. Nice job, Sheriff. Thank you so much.”

Christ. Sawyer did his best to unclench his jaw before pointing out that he wasn’t the convenience store’s personal security consultant, and they couldn’t call 9-1-1 unless there was a true emergency. And then, what the hell, he also took the opportunity to buy two candy bars.

By the time Sawyer pulled up to his house that night, a rainless lightning storm had moved in. Not good. With how dry it had been, it was like playing Russian roulette with lightning-bolt-sized matches on dry timber.

His place looked dark and empty. Empty, he knew, of food, of warmth, of anything remotely welcoming, new paint or not. He walked through his front yard and stopped short at the sight of Chloe sitting on his porch.

She was wearing a long coat and tight leather boots up past her knees but was still huddled into herself for warmth, and without letting himself think, Sawyer pulled her upright and wrapped his arms around her because she wasn’t dark and empty. She was the opposite, and as she leaned in to him, a feeling surged through him that felt startlingly like relief. And need.

So much fucking need. “You’re frozen solid,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

She simply shook her head and pressed her icy nose to his throat, making him suck in a breath. He opened his front door and ushered her inside, where he cranked the heat before turning back to her.

She stood there hugging herself and flashed him a very small smile. “So, um, have you ever done something stupid and then had regrets?”

His heart contracted painfully. If this was where she said she’d just slept with Anderson, he was going to have to shoot the guy, which would suck because Sawyer’s department tended to frown on excessive lethal force. “I try really hard not to do anything stupid,” he said carefully. “But it happens. Ditto on the regrets. What’s this about, Chloe?”

She looked away, but Sawyer hooked a finger under her chin, turning her face back to his. “Me?” he asked. “You regretting us?”

“No. Never.”

He nodded like he understood, but he didn’t. “You and Anderson?”

Her eyes widened. She looked startled, then insulted. “Anderson gave me his twenty-percent employee discount for materials for the spa, so I bought him lunch.”

Sawyer let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, pulled her in again, and kissed her, his body reacting so quickly that it caught him by surprise, and he heard himself groan into her mouth.

Chloe lifted her head. “Do you remember when I said sometimes I need to feel? And that sometimes I do stupid things to get there, like pierce a nipple or hang glide or-”

He ran his gaze over her, thwarted by her damn coat. “Are you hurt? Are you-”

“No.” She fumbled with the buttons, then dropped her coat. Beneath she was utterly, gorgeously naked. And beautiful. So fucking beautiful that Sawyer lost his words and his mind. “God, look at you,” he said hoarsely.

“Welcome to my latest crazy,” she whispered, wearing nothing but those knee-high boots and an unsure smile. “Oh, and you should probably know, I’m quite possibly hypothermic.”

“Luckily I’ve been trained to handle this situation.”

Chloe smiled, and he realized she was nervous. He was nervous, too, which made no sense to him whatsoever. They’d been here before, right here. He pulled off his shirt and reached for her at the same moment she leaped at him, wrapping her legs around his hips. He had one hand on her ass, the other high on her back and in her long hair as he carried her to his bedroom. Lying her on the bed, he stepped back only to get rid of his gun and phone, then strip out of the rest of his clothes, which he did in less than five seconds. Mother of God, let nobody have an emergency tonight, he thought.

He had a moment where he stared down at her on his bed in nothing but those fuck-me boots, not wanting to take them off. But then she shivered, and he reluctantly tugged them from her feet and dropped them to the floor before shoving her beneath his thick covers and following her in. “Step one,” he said. “We conserve body heat.”

“Good plan.” She turned to him, wrapping her frozen limbs around him.

He hissed in a breath when she pressed her frozen toes into his calves, but her own breathing wasn’t anywhere close to even, and he paused. “Need your inhaler?”

She shook her head. “I need you.”

He opened his mouth, but she put a finger over his lips. “I’m done talking now.”

Yeah. So was he. But when her icy fingers walked their way down his chest and stomach, he sucked in another harsh breath and grabbed her hand, rubbing it between his to warm it up.

She laughed at him, but he knew how to shut her up. He kissed her hard and long and deep, running a hand down her quivering body, sliding it between her thighs. Ahhhh. She wasn’t cold here. She was already hot and slick and ready. “You want me.”

She smiled. “Yes. Whatever this is that we’re doing, I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Her softly whispered words staggered him. It hadn’t been a confession of love. Hell, he knew that she didn’t do confessions of love.