The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“Uh, just to say, although I’m beyond thrilled you were so impatient to get in my pants, Sheriff Yeager, I’ve been released from family duty for the evening primarily because Mike and Pam want to sleep in a real bed, not in the back of an RV. So they essentially kicked me out.”
They were out of the bathroom sitting at a high table on tall barstools at the Adam and Eve, the oldest bar in Magdalene, claimed as such even though it was a couple miles outside the city limits, inland from the sea.
It was popular with the townies, who kept quiet about it so they’d have a place to go that the tourists wouldn’t find. It was mostly a dive, but only in a been-around-awhile-and-the-owners-didn’t-feel-like-redecorating kind of way.
And fortunately the bathrooms were clean, there were four of them, and all of them were single occupancy.
Coert had bought Cady a glass of wine and he had a bottle of beer in front of him.
“So I have my overnight bag in my car,” she finished.
“Am I gonna get that until I get Janie back Monday night?” he asked, hoping he would because it was Friday and he’d be freaking thrilled to bed down with Cady and wake up with her the next two days.
“Do you want it?” she asked back.
He shot her a look and didn’t bother to answer a question that stupid.
She smiled at him. “Then you’re getting it.” She reached out a hand to his and the second she touched him, he turned his wrist and curled his fingers around hers. “And can you spend some time with us this weekend?”
He shook his head but said, “I can but not much. To give my guys time with their families on a weekend after a holiday, I’m in the office both days and on call all weekend. You’d think things would slow down around the holidays because they’re the holidays and because it’s frickin’ cold outside. But it’s the opposite, mostly because people drink a lot, and drunk people do stupid shit. Stupid drunk people do really stupid shit. And both kinds get really drunk around Christmas.”
“Ah,” she murmured.
“So maybe if you want me for dinner, I can do that. But if I get a call, I gotta roll.”
She nodded.
“I’ll give you a key to my house so you can get in.”
At that, she smiled again and her fingers curled tighter around his.
“And I’ll give you one to the lighthouse too and order another remote for the gate,” she told him.
And at that, Coert tightened his fingers around hers.
He then gave her hand a tug and leaned in. “By the way, when your family is gone, we have a command performance meal at The Eaves with Jake and Josie, Amelia and Mick and Alyssa and Junior.”
For a second she looked confused then it dawned on her and she looked sheepish.
“I meant to tell you that I met Josie and Alyssa at a shop on the jetty.”
“I know. Alyssa had a break at the salon today and took it to stroll to the station. Apparently we should have picked something other than the town’s beauty salon to have a drama right outside their window.”
Her eyes got big.
Coert leaned in and gave her a quick kiss before he pulled away.
“It’s okay,” he said softly.
“You’re the sheriff.”
“Baby, I fucked you in the bathroom of the Adam and Eve. You didn’t have sex hair when you walked out but you sure had sex face. We’re sitting here holding hands. We’re not a secret. We’re also human and shit happens. It’s against the law to have sex in a public place. It isn’t against the law to shout at someone on the street.”
She looked alarmed.
“I had sex face?” she asked.
She still kinda did.
He didn’t tell her that.
Through his chuckle, he answered, “Trust me, it’s a good look.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
He kept chuckling, and to move her past that, told her, “They have a reservation. And Alyssa says she’s waiting for your call to make an appointment at the salon so she’s not only nosing into our business, she’s recruiting a new client. She’s crazy, but she’s a really good person. Great wife. Great mother. Far’s I can tell, great friend. She’s on a bent of adopting all the new women around her age that come to town, and there’s been a few of them recently, Josie and Amelia namely. My impression is she’s done that because they needed a girl close to get them through some rough times. She’s making it clear they want to take you on, and I’ll say, you could do worse but not sure you could do better.”
“So you know all of these people?” she asked.
“Jake’s one of my closest buds. Mickey’s the same. So yeah. Josie and Jake didn’t get married too long ago and Josie adopted Jake’s youngest, his two older kids have a different mom. Amelia’s newer but she and Mick have been together for a while now. I say that because you won’t feel new or like you’re coming into a group that’s established and you’re the odd man out. Except for Alyssa, all the women are all new to Magdalene and they’re all mostly just starting out together with their men. So in a way, we’ll both fit right in.”
“I know I shouldn’t share, about us, I mean, with you being a public figure. An elected figure. But I have to tell you that I might have let slip—”
“Honey,” he whispered, leaning closer to her. “I know what you said. Alyssa alluded to it. I don’t care. It happened. What happened with us happened. You didn’t do anything wrong, now or then. I didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t go on a killing spree. We got caught up in something extreme that we were too young to cope with. I’ve got nothing to hide. Neither do you.” He grinned. “And if it gets out, which with Alyssa is a crapshoot, it’ll wrap up the female vote for me. Long lost loves reunited. They’ll all swoon.”
She leaned back, took hold of her wine in her free hand, but even pulling away, she kept hold of his hand.
And she did all of this stating, “Women do vote for people for more reasons than they’re attractive or they’re heading toward the happily ever after, living a real-life, mostly tragic, finally brightening romance novel, Coert.” She took a sip with her eyes directed away and slanted them back before concluding, “And it’s been some time since women regularly swooned and they did it before mostly because they had to wear corsets.”
Coert busted out laughing.
Cady rolled her eyes.
He erased the distance she’d put between them by kissing her lightly again, tasting wine and Cady, before he shifted away and grabbed his bottle of beer.
After taking a swig, he said, “So we’re on for the fourth of January at The Eaves. It’s dressy. Is that cool?”
“The guys and the kids are leaving the second but the girls are staying until that weekend for some girl time. Do you think they could come?” she asked.
“I think Jake and Mick are my best buds but if we put Alyssa together with Kath, Pam and Shannon, and they have to sit through that, they might not think the same way about me.”
She blinked at him.
“Kath, particularly, is nuts,” he told her. “But in a good way,” he added.
“They’re lovely,” she retorted.
“They are,” Coert agreed. “But I haven’t lived forty-six years of life not figuring out what kind of women should not be thrown together when there are people with penises in the mix.”
Her upper body started shaking, and her voice was too when she replied, “Alyssa struck me as someone who would be Kath’s best friend in the entire world in about two seconds, and that world should watch out when that happens.”
As she spoke, something struck Coert and the smile he had on his face died.
“Was she the one who was with you when you went to see Caylen?”
Cady had watched his smile die and her face grew concerned. “Yes, but honestly, Coert, he was being—”
“I’m glad.”
She shut up.
“Don’t go see him again,” he ordered.
She shook her head. “I already
“When I told you before you shouldn’t, I didn’t mean it the way I mean how I’m telling you now you just won’t.”
Cady stared at him.
“I get it,” he said. “You’re your own woman. Got your own money. Your own home. Your own car. Your own life. Your own mind. And it may seem the way I’m saying all that that I’m patronizing you. But I promise, I really do get it. But back then, Cady, I was not in a place to put a stop to that asshole being an asshole to you. Now I am. He called the fucking sheriff to warn his sister off just to make trouble for you. Your parents are dead. As far as he knows, he’s all you’ve got and that’s his response?” Coert shook his head. “No. You have a family now. One that’s growing with me and Janie and then maybe Jake and Josie, Mick, Amelia, Alyssa, Junior, and all that may come from that. You don’t need him. You have all you need.”
She stroked the side of his hand with her thumb. “I already gave up on him, Coert.”
“Good,” he bit out.
“Kath called him a fool to his face.”
“Good,” he repeated.
“And, well, also a dick.”
“Good,” he clipped.
She stopped talking but continued studying him.
Coert took another swig of beer.
When he put the bottle back down, she noted softly, “You wanted to protect me back then.”
“I thought I made that clear,” he reminded her.
“You did, I just . . .” She looked away and grabbed her glass again. “You did.”
He waited for her to take a sip and then squeezed her hand to get her attention.
She looked at him.
“What?” he pushed because he knew she’d left something unsaid.
She didn’t make him push harder.
“I was so young, even with all these years, so much pain was covering it that I didn’t see underneath it to see that you kept your promise.”
Coert felt something twisting in his gut. “What promise?”
“That I’d never be safer with anyone than I was with you.”
It was then Coert looked away as that twist in his gut made him feel suddenly sick.
She jerked his hand but Coert just took another swig of his beer to keep down the bile threatening and kept his eyes unseeing across the bar.
“Coert,” she called gently.
“I didn’t keep you safe, Cady.”
“At dinner, both times with my parents and Caylen, you can’t know. I’m glad you’ll never know. But I used to lose it, lose my temper, or get beaten down. But when I was with you, I just endured it because I knew I’d be going home with you. I knew my life was just us and they didn’t matter anymore. If my mom said something or Caylen said something, all I did was look at you and I could handle it.”
That got her Coert’s eyes.
“And when we were out with Lars’s crew,” she continued. “I didn’t like it but I knew you knew it and I wasn’t there for them. I was there with you. So I didn’t care. I didn’t feel unsafe. It was the same thing. I could handle it because you were there with me and in the end, always in the end, Coert, we’d be together and just be . . . us.”
“And that ended not as an always,” he returned.
“And now it’s begun again and it’ll forever be an always.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that because he hoped to God she was right.
She leaned closer to him. “You bought all the food and you took out the trash and you helped me do the dishes, and you got out of bed early to take me to work that time my car wouldn’t start because it was so cold. I loved that. I loved everything about you. Which means I loved how you took care of me and you didn’t make a big deal of it. You just did it like you just breathed.”
“And the time in between I didn’t.”
“Stop it,” she hissed.
Her sudden change of tone made Coert’s head jerk.
“You told me not to go back there, but you keep going back there, Coert. So stop it. We’re not there. We’re here.”
She shook his hand hard and kept speaking.
“And we’re never going to get from here to wherever we’re going if you stay back there. You gave me my diamond and all you could think about was that you wanted to give it to me before. But that doesn’t matter.” She lifted her free hand to her throat where his diamond lay. “I have my diamond. I have you. If you stay in a place where we didn’t have each other, what we have now is going to get bitter and twisted and ugly when, if you were right here with me, in a bar in a beautiful town with a beautiful person you love, you’d see that all we have left of the time in between is just that. Beautiful.”
He took his fingers from around his beer and cupped the side of her face.
And again he had nothing to say because she again was absolutely right.
Though he had something to say about something else.
“That time in between made you wise,” he murmured.
“That time in between made you more handsome, which I find annoying since it just made me older.”
He felt his face get soft. “You’re beautiful, Cady. You’ve always been beautiful. And you always will be.”
She slid her eyes to his ear, muttering, “Right.”
“I miss the freckles though.”
She slid her eyes back.
And when she did, they were wet.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He dropped his forehead to hers.
“Now you know that I wasn’t happy because I didn’t have you,” she told him. “But I was taken care of and I was loved and there were a lot of really good times and you left me to that. You left me with Patrick. It wasn’t your choice and it wasn’t the way it should be, but it was the way it was and what came of that is beautiful. And you got your job and this Jake person and Mickey, and you got Janie. We both suffered but neither of us stopped living our lives and we got so much out of them, so, so much. And now we have each other. So we have it all. If we believe that we can have it all. And I believe. Now, are you with me on that?”
“I’m with you, Cady,” he told her quietly.
“Good, because I’m going to have to get angry if you slip back there again.”
He felt his eyes get lazy with his smile and he adjusted so he could touch his mouth to hers.
But he didn’t separate the connection of their foreheads when he pulled his lips away.
“I’ll try not to make you angry,” he promised.
“See to that,” she ordered, being irritable, he knew, to fight another emotion still in her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.
He watched from close as her eyes narrowed. “Are you patronizing me now?”
Coert slid his hand to curl it around her neck. “Baby, chill. I’m good. We’re good. We’re having a drink, and then we’re going to my place and sleeping together and waking up together, two days straight, so we got a lot to look forward to.”
“Right,” she said, disconnecting them to the point he removed his hand, and reaching for her wine. “So drink up. I want to get home because I get the top when we have sex in your bed again. You’ve only let me have the top when I attacked you on the couch. I like the top. You go too fast. If I’m in charge, we’ll take it slow.”
He couldn’t believe it, but his dick was getting hard.
However.
“Cady, you’re so not gonna take it slow.”
She swallowed her wine and turned to him. “You do things that escalate things. I’ll do things that elongate things.”
If she didn’t quit talking about sex, something was going to elongate to the point he couldn’t walk out of the bar.
“Cady, stop talking about sex.”
She ignored him. “And you don’t get to touch me.”
Christ.
“Cady, stop talking about sex.”
“Maybe I’ll make you hold on to the headboard.”
Jesus.
She gulped back some wine and looked at him again.
“Do you have handkerchiefs?” she asked. “I’m thinking I’ll tie you up.”
Coert looked to the ceiling and puffed out a breath.
“Oh, right, so it’s only the woman who’s supposed to be tied up,” she declared.
He took hold of her again, this time with his fingers curled around the back of her scalp, and when he pulled her to him it was more of a yank.
“No. It isn’t. But I can talk to you about how I’m down with you tyin’ me up and ridin’ my face and then ridin’ my cock and taking yourself there as often as you want usin’ me to do it, and I can see that look in your eyes, baby. You like that. And you can walk outta here likin’ that, gettin’ wet for me, your panties drenched you want that so bad, and no one will know, but me. But I like that too and I can’t just walk outta here with a drop of pre-cum on my dick and no one will know. You hear what I’m sayin’?”
She got closer, sliding a hand up the top of his thigh which was not helping.
She did this saying breathily, “Wow, dirty talk is fun.”
“You are not getting me.”
She gave him a hooded-eyes, sexy-as-fuck grin and leaned back, dislodging his hand and removing her own, going again to her wine, murmuring, “Oh, I’m getting you, Coert.”
He hated his name. All his life he’d hated his name. No one knew how to pronounce it. No one knew how to spell it.
On Cady’s lips, which were curved up in that hot way, he loved it.
She’d played him.
Got him hard on purpose.
A new discovery from Cady.
He liked it.
“Hurry up with that wine,” he ordered.
She looked at him again. “You can’t chug wine, Coert.”
He lifted a brow.
She grinned and took another sip.
He lifted his beer and didn’t take a swig, he took a glug.
He also managed to control his erection by the time they walked out of the bar.
But just barely.
Cady flew over the edge.
Coert kept bucking up into her as she did and he continued to do it, digging his heels in the bed, his head in the pillows, his fingers curled so tight around the slats in the headboard, it was a miracle they didn’t snap, as he shot inside her.