He took the soap in his hands, lathered it up, massaged it all over her shoulders, her neck, her breasts. Down between her legs and she gasped. He went down on his knees, washed her muscular thighs, her slender calves, her sexy little feet.

“Oh Nick.”

Her hands grabbed his hair, kneading, as his tongue trailed up her slick body, behind her knee, scraping over her hot center to her navel. She shivered and moaned, brought his mouth back to hers. Reached down and touched him, making him moan in response. He leaned into her body, pushing her gently against the cold tile wall. She clung to him, one leg wrapped around his waist.

“The bed,” he whispered in her ear.

“Here. Now.” She sucked the lobe of his ear, kissed his neck, nibbled his shoulder.

He held one thigh up with his arm, and she guided him into her.

“Fast,” she said. “Fast and hard and don’t stop.”

Her words were as sexy as her voice, deep with arousal. He gave her what she asked for, and together, too quickly, they peaked.

“Now, we go slow,” he told her as he turned off the water and carried her to her bed.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Carina asked Nick as they lay in bed later that night.

“Not until I met you.”

Her heart flipped and she felt light-headed. “My parents fell in love right away.”

Nick raised his head, propped it on his left hand, while his right hand played with her hair. “Really?”

“My mom escaped Cuba when she was twenty. This was in the mid-sixties, when it was harder to escape. Not that it’s easy now, but then…many died trying to reach Florida.” They still did, but not in the same numbers.

Carina told the story as if it had happened to her. The tragic and happy tale. “My mom bribed a captain to take her and her younger sister to Florida. He only took her halfway, dumping her on a dinghy with my aunt in the middle of the ocean. My aunt didn’t survive.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was wonderful, my mom said. Always happy. But at sea…three days with no food and only a gallon of fresh water to share. There were sharks in the water, and every once in a while they’d bump the bottom of the boat.

“My father was in the army, but he was on maneuvers in the Keys. He saw the boat in the distance and took a motorboat to meet it. You know the general rule, right? If Cuban immigrants make it to land, they have amnesty. If they’re apprehended at sea, they’re taken to a military base and deported.

“My mother would have been severely beaten had she been returned to Cuba, probably killed, because of her escape. Made an example. She had embarrassed her father in front of his commander, Castro.” She tensed, knowing the pain her mother had endured and the emotional pain still in her heart. Nick rubbed her arm and she relaxed. It was so nice to have him in her bed.

“Your dad didn’t deport her.”

“He brought her to land. My aunt was dead, but my mom had kept her body in the boat. To bury her in free soil.” Carina’s eyes watered, as they always did thinking of what her mother must have been like when she was young. Thinking about the aunt she never knew.

“My father lied to his superiors, said he found the women on an island in the Keys. On land. They were inseparable, and a week later they married.”

“Fast.”

“They’ve been married forty-one years. Not bad for a quick engagement.”

“Not bad at all,” Nick said and kissed her forehead.

Carina didn’t know why she was compelled to tell Nick the story, except that she felt so right with him.

“You’re a great cop.”

“Hmmm.”

“You know, we all make mistakes. I should never have left you without backup at the Burns house.”

“You should never have gone into the restaurant without backup, either,” Nick told her.

“But,” she continued, “you saved Leah and the situation in the restaurant was contained. We make decisions, right or wrong, in a split second. We don’t always have the luxury of time.”

He kissed her. “You don’t need to remind me. I’ll never forget what happened today.”

“But I can honestly say I don’t know that anyone else would have done anything different under those circumstances. We trust our instincts, the gut-level impression born in the moment. When my dad broke the law to bring a Cuban immigrant to shore. When you inspected that cabin outside Bozeman. When I decided to act in the kitchen-and when I decided not to act.

“Mistakes happen. We pay the price and go on.” She kissed him.

He stared into her eyes, serious. “I love you, Carina.”

She sought out his lips. “I love you, too, Sheriff.”

They took their time, slow kisses and languid touches. A whisper, a murmur, skin on skin, hands entwined. This was making love. This was what Carina had been missing in her life.

She didn’t want to let him go.

Nick’s internal clock woke him before dawn. He leaned over, looked at Carina’s silhouette, her hair sprawled across the pink pillow. He smiled. Pink. He’d never have suspected that Carina Kincaid had a girlie streak that included frilly linens and pink decor, but somehow it suited her. Hard and focused on the outside, all woman on the inside.

He was going to miss her. Already, he regretted having to leave.

But his duty was to the people of Gallatin County. He was an elected official who had already been lax in his responsibilities since the Butcher investigation closed.

He’d been thinking about what needed to be done, and running away was not the answer. And if he stayed here in San Diego, he’d be doing exactly that, running away from his problems and leaving the sheriff’s department in irresponsible hands. He’d given thirteen years of his life to the department, good and bad, and he couldn’t turn his back on the men and women who had stood by him in his darkest hour.

His flight left later that morning; he needed to be on it.

He didn’t want to leave.

Silently, he rose from the bed and rubbed his knee. He also had the surgery coming up. He couldn’t miss it.

He wanted Carina there with him.

“Cara,” he whispered in her ear. “I need to talk to you.”

Her eyes fluttered open, darker in the dim light. “Nick?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“You awake?”

“Yeah.” She sat up, rubbed her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I want to marry you, Carina. Come to Montana with me.”

She stiffened beside him and he frowned. What was wrong? “Carina?”

She swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. “Montana?”

“That’s where I live.”

“But I live here!” Tears welled in her eyes. “I thought you understood. This is my family. My life. My career.”

He swallowed, his chest tight. “You knew I was going back to Montana today.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Come with me.”

“I can’t. For the first sixteen years of my life I moved all over the country. Every year a new school. Every year a new house, new friends, new parks. I never made a real friend until my father retired here, in San Diego. I’ve been here for nearly twenty years. My friends are here. My job. My family!”

She was right. He couldn’t ask her to leave.

And he couldn’t give up his career, either.

She must have seen the realization on his face. She reached for him. “Nick, please. Don’t go.”

He swallowed hard, tears stinging his eyes. “I have to.” He touched her cheek, whispered. “I have to.”

He tilted her chin up. The tears in her eyes made him ache. He wanted to tell her he’d never forget her. That he would always love her. That she had become the most important person in his life.

But he could say none of that. It wouldn’t be fair to her, and Carina deserved love just as much as he did. He didn’t want to trap her with some mind game.

He touched his lips to hers, tasted her for the last time.